What is Wet Needling AKA Trigger Point Injections?Dr Travel and Simons coined the term Wet Needling as a means of deactivating Trigger Points. In their initial model, the use of intradermal needles and injecting various substances into Trigger Points was advocated. This procedure is nowadays referred to as Trigger Point Injection and can only be performed by physicians, Nurse Practitioners or Physician Assistants.
History of Trigger Point InjectionsIn 1979 Czech physician Dr Karel Lewit conducted a seminal study when he compared the effectiveness of intradermal needles and injecting various substances into the Trigger Points with insertion of a regular acupuncture needle into the Trigger Points. He found no difference between these two interventions. He concluded that it was not the substance that was injected into the trigger points, which was responsible for the deactivation of the Trigger Points and improvement of the patient’s symptoms, but that it was the insertion of the needle into the trigger point. He called it the “needling effect.” Numerous medical studies since then found no difference between injections of different substances into the trigger points and Dry Needling.Dry Needling vs Trigger Point InjectionsWhile dry needling has been shown to be as effective as wet needling, there were some studies that showed better effects with wet needling/trigger point injections. The theory behind that is that perhaps it is the larger gage of the intradermal needle causing larger micro lesions in the tissue which is responsible for the effect. In some cases, combining Dry Needling with Trigger Point Injections may result in faster recovery and greater pain relief.
