It is common knowledge that Licensed Acupuncturists (L.Ac.), trained in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), have been using acupuncture needles to address pain issues as it has been used for thousands of years. Whether you change the technique's name to "dry needling" to suit other medical professions' need to co-opt the process as their own, does not change the fact a high percentage of a Licensed Acupuncturists' work is treating painful conditions. The act of inserting an acupuncture needle into the body, under any pretense, or for any purpose whatsoever, is the practice of acupuncture.

Physical therapists and other health professionals are not licensed by law to practice acupuncture and therefore are not qualified to perform “dry needling.”

“Dry needling” is far outside both physical therapists’ and other health professionals’ scope of practice and their scope of education and training. I

In most states, to become a licensed acupuncturist, an applicant must complete a minimum of 1,905 hours of education and supervised clinical training (1,245 hours of education and 660 hours of supervised clinical training). Yet physical therapists and other health professionals, who are not licensed by law to practice acupuncture, are inserting acupuncture needles (up to four inches or more in length) into unsuspecting patients with as little as a weekend workshop in acupuncture.

“In 2009, a physical therapist submitted a complaint to the Maryland Board of Acupuncture concerning the use of the term dry needling in chart notes by an acupuncturist. The Maryland Board of Acupuncture correctly dismissed the complaint because the procedure was done by a licensed acupuncturist trained in the use of dry needling, i.e., acupuncture.

In filing the complaint, the physical therapist was not asserting that the acupuncturist caused any harm or potential of harm to the patient. Rather, the physical therapist asserted that the acupuncturist used proprietary language that was unique to physical therapy, when in fact the acupuncturist was using language that was common across professions. The Little Hoover Commission, in its 2004 report to the California legislature concluded, “interactions with other health care providers, including collaboration and referrals, as well as with many members of the public, benefit from the use of common, Western-based diagnostic terminology.” (from The Council of Colleges of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine’s Position Paper on Dry Needling).

Please note, inserting needles where there is pain may possibly alleviate a condition that is superficial in nature. However, once pain has become more chronic and/or involves weak energy flow in the meridians or poor organ function, putting needles into sites of pain, will do little or nothing to help the patient’s condition.

Fully trained L.Ac.s have a vast array of tools they can use to treat pain including: herbs, moxa (heat), cupping, swa sha and more to treat pain in a highly effective manner that can further augment acupuncture treatment. Having no understanding of Traditional Chinese Medicine’s vast scientific parameters, other medical providers cannot treat underlying issues based on TCM that may contribute or even cause pain, which is standard care with Licensed Acupuncturists.

Allowing minimally or untrained trained individuals to usurp our extensive training in order to have another modality they can use, is not in the best interests of patients and poses real risks to the public.

“In one such case, Emily Kuykendall, a high school teacher from Maryland, had suffered nerve damage from the use of acupuncture needles by a physical therapist. In another such case, Kim Ribble-Orr, a former Olympic athlete from Canada, had suffered a punctured lung and a pneumothorax (the presence of air in the cavity between the lungs and the chest wall, causing collapse of the lung) from the use of acupuncture needles by a massage therapist.” http://acupuncturewisconsin.org/dry-needling-10-facts-you-should-know-2/

If other professions want to use acupuncture needles to really help the public, they should get trained in TCM as we L.Ac.s are in order to do a effective successful treatment versus trying just to increase their revenue stream. Refusing to become properly trained in acupuncture indicates they should refer their patients to Licensed Acupuncturists, because “Dry Needling” is not a “technique;” it is acupuncture.