Intramuscular Manual Therapy
(AKA Trigger Point Dry Needling) This is a unique treatment that offers relief to patients with a variety of conditions. Just some of the benefits of IMT include decreasing pain on an acute and chronic level, promoting healing, increase ROM, increase function.
When Traditional Massage Just Isn’t Enough
The easiest way to think of this treatment is to relate it to a massage. The knots in your muscles that massage therapy often targets are similar areas of treatment for IMT (also known as Trigger Point Dry Needling-TDN). Often times these knots live at a deep level that fingers and hands just can’t get to. Those knots are the goal of IMT. The needles used are very fine, thin, and flexible needles that are quickly tapped into the muscle and causes those knots to decrease, the muscle to loosen, and healing to begin which ultimately decreases pain and increases proper function.
Those knots in your muscles are known as Trigger Points. Trigger points are typically associated with muscle tightness and pain. It is very typical for the trigger point’s main referral region to be some distance away from the actual trouble spot in the muscle. Headaches are a great example of this. Treating the musculature in the neck and shoulders can quickly decrease the intensity and frequency of headaches.
Trigger Points Are a Map to Healing
With physical therapy, Intramuscular Manual Therapy (IMT) is a treatment for muscular tightness and spasms which commonly follows injuries and often accompanies the degenerative processes of a chronically painful condition and dysfunction. Muscular tightness and spasms cause compression and irritation of the nerves exiting the spine. When the nerves are irritated, they cause a protective spasm of all the muscles to which they are connected. This may cause peripheral diagnoses such as carpel tunnel, tendonitis, osteoarthritis, decreased mobility and chronic pain. Small, fine needles are inserted in the muscles at the trigger points causing the pain referral. The muscles would then contract and release, improving flexibility of the muscle and decreasing symptoms. IMT/IMS treats these trigger points to release them and allow the muscle to heal.