Acupuncture Treatment in London & Essex

Medical Acupuncture at Spine Plus

At Spine Plus we provide specialist medical acupuncture therapy from our team of osteopaths and physiotherapists in London and Essex, focusing on myofascial pain and trigger points through trigger point dry needling. One of the distinguishing features of our clinical team is that all our therapists are trained in acupuncture including trigger point dry needling (medical acupuncture) and acupressure, so these techniques are available as part of any appointment.

What Is Medical Acupuncture?

Medical acupuncture (also known as trigger point dry needling) is a form of acupuncture based on Western anatomical and neurophysiological principles rather than traditional Chinese medicine. Very fine acupuncture needles are inserted into specific trigger points within muscles to relieve pain, reduce muscle tension and promote healing.

Trigger point dry needling is sometimes referred to as medical acupuncture, but is quite different from traditional acupuncture in that needle placement is guided by anatomy and clinical assessment rather than meridian theory.

How Does It Work?

Dry needling works by:

• Promoting blood flow to the affected tissue
• Reducing spontaneous electrical activity within trigger points
• Stimulating the body to release growth factors that promote healing
• Interrupting pain signalling pathways within the nervous system
• Reducing muscle guarding and spasm

A very common area for trigger points is the muscle at the top of the shoulder (upper trapezius). This trigger point typically causes referred pain to the head and neck, contributing to tension headaches. Targeting this with dry needling can produce rapid, lasting improvement in both neck pain and headaches.

What Therapies Exist to Relieve Trigger Points?

Some pain doctors use injections to relieve trigger points, using a hypodermic needle to inject medications such as local anaesthetic, cortico-steroid or Botox. However, complications may occur due to the drugs used, and as well as being relatively expensive there is often a limit on the number of times these procedures can be used. Research studies have found that people improve when needles are inserted in trigger points, no matter what substance is injected, or even if nothing is injected (dry needling), so it is often the effect of the needle itself that helps, not the medication injected.

Dry needling also offers several advantages over injections: no medication is involved so there are fewer side effects, it is a lot cheaper to perform, and it can be repeated as many times as required.

Conditions Treated

• Tension headaches and cervicogenic headaches
• Neck pain and shoulder tension
• Back pain and lumbar muscle spasm
• Myofascial pain syndrome
• Repetitive strain injuries (RSI)
• Tennis and golfer’s elbow
• Hip and gluteal trigger points
• Calf tightness and Achilles tendon problems
• Rehabilitation from orthopaedic surgery

What to Expect

Acupuncture needles are very fine and most patients report minimal discomfort on insertion. You may feel a brief aching or cramping sensation when the needle reaches a trigger point, this is a normal therapeutic response called a “twitch response.” Sessions typically last 20 to 40 minutes. Medical acupuncture is often combined with manual therapy techniques for optimal results.

How Often Is Treatment Needed?

Dry needling can be performed once or twice a week initially, before the intervals are extended. A typical course takes between 3 and 12 sessions. In the case of stubborn trigger points that do not fully respond to dry needling, we may refer for injections.

What Does Dry Needling Feel Like?

You may feel nothing at all when the needle is first inserted. When the needle contacts the trigger point it should cause a “twitch response”, a momentary contraction of the muscle. It may just be a mild twitch, or it may feel like a cramping of the muscle. You might also experience referred pain in a distant area of your body, this is a good thing, especially if it’s a familiar pain for you, as it means we’ve needled an active trigger point causing some of your symptoms. The twitch response is usually a strong indicator of a successful treatment, the stronger the twitch, the better the improvement will usually be afterwards. The area may feel mildly bruised for a day or so, and it may take up to 48 hours to feel the full improvement.

Safety and Qualifications

All our acupuncture practitioners are fully qualified osteopaths or physiotherapists who have completed additional postgraduate training in medical acupuncture. Treatment is adapted to your medical history and individual risk factors. Acupuncture is generally very safe and side effects are rare.

The most serious complication which could occur is a puncture of the lung if needling around the chest wall (thorax). If this happened, it may only require a chest x-ray and no further treatment, though symptoms of shortness of breath may last for several days or weeks; a more severe lung puncture may require hospitalisation and re-inflation of the lung. Thankfully the risk of a lung puncture is very low and, in skilled hands, should not be a concern; however the guidelines rightly dictate you should be aware of this risk before consenting to treatment.

Other complications include bruising, which occasionally occurs but should not be a concern unless you are taking blood-thinning medication such as warfarin. The needles we use are all sterile, single-use needles, so the risk of infection is negligible, and unlike syringe needles they are very small with no cutting edge, so the likelihood of any significant tissue trauma is very small.

Don’t like the idea of needles? Trigger points can also be treated using advanced soft tissue massage techniques performed by our osteopaths and massage therapists.

Why Spine Plus?

One of our hallmarks is that our osteopaths use medical acupuncture and acupressure alongside traditional treatment. We have found medical acupuncture to be particularly effective when combined with traditional osteopathic and physiotherapy manual treatment, this requires additional postgraduate training which they have all undertaken. Our physiotherapists and osteopaths are also trained in the use of electrotherapy, such as ultrasound, which can be very useful for certain ligament and tendon problems. This means our osteopaths and physiotherapists have all the necessary skills and abilities to provide the gold standard of treatment.

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