Anyone tried Dry Needling or Acupuncture for Pain or Neuropathy?

It was recommended to try by my pt. I have DDD in my neck and that's where they want to do. Had anybody tried it and did it help. My C5,6 and 7 have no cushion left.

Has anyone tried acupuncture for headaches or for anything? So far, it's not working for my headaches.

There's really no evidence that acupuncture works for much of anything. The studies that show positive outcomes are quite flawed.

What kind of headaches do you have?

Have you had other types of PT and a home exercise program?

Dry Needling Adds No Benefit to the Treatment of Neck Pain: A Sham-Controlled Randomized Clinical Trial With 1-Year Follow-up https://www.jospt.org/doi/10.2519/jospt.2021.9864

Cookiepic, my physical therapist has talked to me about dry needling. The way it works is it releases the electrical charge that is holding the muscles in a spasm knot. Since metal conducts electricity, it dissipates the charge when you stick a needle into the muscle. I don't like needles, so I didn't try it. The other thing that helps which I have done is a Dolphin Neurostimulator which is 2 handheld devices that send an electric current between them. I also am a spine surgery patient, and prior to my cervical fusion, my therapist was using the Dolphin to block pain signals at the nerve roots of my spine. That helped for about a week to reduce pain. Those give some temporary relief, but do not address the structural problem of the spine.

I had spinal cord compression because of a collapsed C5/C6 disc and bone spurs that were pressing into my spinal cord. I had a single level fusion at Mayo without hardware, and I stayed in a neck brace until the fusion process had begun. I had great results from my surgery and I'm doing well now at 5 years post op. The spine can start to fuse itself if the discs collapse completely which may become inoperable if that happens. A spine specialist would have to answer that question. Bone remodels because of pressure which is why bone spurs form and they can start to fuse the adjacent vertebrae and compress the spaces between vertebrae where the nerve roots exit.

Sometimes physical therapy is tried as a prerequisite to surgery. Are you considering a surgical procedure for your spinal disc issues? If you have questions, I can answer about my experience with spine surgery.

Have had a migraine/daily persistent headache for 28 months. Been treating at Jefferson Headache Center in Philly for years. Have tried everything. Trying acupuncture now which is not working.

I was misdiagnosed with migraine for more than 20 years. Finally was correctly diagnosed with cervicogenic headache. Triptans and other meds Rx'd for migraine never helped me. Do you feel the diagnosis of migraine is accurate?

Right now the last resort would be surgery on my neck. And my orthopedic doctor said that would be my last resort. He feels if l went to a pt and also did steroid injections it should lesson the discomfort. I'm really not crazy about getting injection in my neck and reading alot about them they don't work or if they do for a short time. When my pt mentioned dry needling it sounded somewhat interesting. No steroids injected and it seems alot of people got relief.

Can l ask you how you feel with cervicogenic headache. I'm asking because l am thinking this is what l get. I have DDD in my neck. When really bad l get the discomfort up the back of my head to the top. Sometimes it goes into my forehead.

What you have is the classic "Ram's horn" distribution of pain with cervicogenic headache. I have DDD at all levels but really have no pain or radiculopathy except in my thoracic spine. I never felt my headaches were migraine but no one really listened. I saw a Spine and Sports Medicine specialist for something else, we started talking about my headaches, and he felt they weren't migraine either. I started doing upper back exercises, stopped sumatriptan, which made me feel awful, and it was about 6 weeks later, after 20+ years, I started feeling better.