As a dry needle patient, my experiences with my therapist have been completely professional.  The training that they receive and how this practice operates within the current guidelines is completely professional.  My experiences with the dry needle therapy have given me such relief from the pain I had when I began this therapy.

I attended the public forum and I did make comments before the board.  As a lay person and as a patient, I was appalled at the angry, disrespectful, and even disparaging comments made by the opposition to dry needle PTs.  I had understood that this would be an opportunity to talk about the best way to protect patients and ensure they receive the very best care.  The level of hostility directed to any PT doing dry needle therapy was surprising and left me with a much lower opinion of acupuncturists after their inappropriate remarks. Also, I was confused by effort to "redefine" dry needle therapy.  Just because other professionals disagree with board designated definitions does not make the definitions of needle therapy invalid.

As we all know, more regulations do not and cannot protect against the faults of human nature.  Case in point: how many drunk driving laws are there and every day, drunk drivers hurt and even kill others.  There are always going to be examples of treatments that were administered incorrectly, some of which lead to injuries.  Trying to force more regulations on dry needle therapists will not solve the problem of human mistakes.  I'm sure a Google search of acupuncturists who hurt their patients would turn up just as many examples of this as for any other therapy.

The guidelines and regulations in place now provide a high level of care and professional treatment for dry needle therapists.  It is my hope that the board considers this as they make their decision to leave current regulations in place.