I strongly oppose the treatment of "Dry Needling" done by Physical Therapists.  I am a Doctor of Oriental Medicine in Nevada.  The treatment of Dry Needling (DN) is a misnomer, a distraction used by the PT's in an attempt to claim what they do is completely different from Acupuncture.  What they call DN is Acupuncture: they use Acupucnture points, use Acupuncture needles, treat tender points defined in Chinese Medicine as "ashi" points, define the effects in a Westernized version of what Chinese Medicine has known for 3000 years, and describe the same palpatory assessment and indications for use of points as Acupuncturists do.  The term Dry Needling ACTUALLY refers to the use of a hypodermic needle ( a hollow needle used to inject liquid) WITHOUT an liquid, into a painful trigger point for the purpose of releasing said trigger point;  Thus DRY Needling.  In the 1930's Trigger Points were discovered in the West.  These are tender points that can jump when palpated and radiate pain elsewhere.  Physicians "discovered" Trigger Points (which aligned perfectly with Acupuncture points in location and description) and began injecting medicine into them to release them.  They soon realized that merely needling these points with a "dry" hypodermic needle was as effective as injecting medicine.  In the 1960's when Chinese Medicine made its way to the shores of the US, these practitioners realized that the fine, filiform, solid Acupuncture needle was much less painful than a large guage hypodermic needle for inserting into Trigger points.  Acupuncturists had been needling these Trigger Points, by a differnent name for 3000 years and they had the painless tools to do it.  Thus what PT's descibe as Dry Needling and their technical biomedical explanation for its use has been a part of Chinese Medicine for thousands of years.  They merely think they are doing something different because they have Western, scientific, biomedical terminology to describe the phenomenom. If they want to perform Dry Needling, then they need to use large hypodermic needles.  They should needle Trigger Points in large muscles with large hypodermic needles, NOT Acupuncture points in the face, hands and feet with Acupuncture needles.  The use of hypodermic needles would certainly NOT be in their scope of practice.  If they are going to practice Dry Needling with hypodermic needles, they need to become a physician;  If they want to insert acupuncture needles into humans, they need to become an Acupuncturist.