I am opposed to the current standards of 54 hours of education for PT's in the area of dry needling. They are taught in those hours in my opinion, just the bare minimum- of depth of needling, safety and clean needle technique, angel of insertion. The land marks used to teach dry needling are acupuncture points and any needle inserted into the skin is and always will be acupuncture.

Painful points not on meridians are called Ah shi points and have been used by acupuncturist since the beginning of this medicine. Muscle trigger points are the same thing as "painful points" and therefore need to be needled by practitioners who are inserting needles with precision, knowing what tissue types feel like as they insert the needles and most importantly- away from structures eg- lungs, nerves and blood vessels. Angle of insertion and depth so as to keep patients safe and in all examples I have seen on the back PT's routinely use perpendicular insertion. What happens if the muscle tissue spasms and the needles are pulled in deeper??? Practitioners need to be aware of this phenomena and that is why acupuncturist and medical acupuncturist are trained with angle of insertion and emergency protocol so that if the body responds is such a manner, the needle can be removed with minimal damage to the patient. 

As an acupuncturist who spent hundreds of hours studying depth, surface anatomy, point location and safe needling techniques before touching a classmate---let alone a patient I find it completely unsafe to say that even a PhD level physical therapist who studies manual physical manipulation never has an opportunity with the amount of time learn and/or experience what safe needling feels like and get the guidance to adjust their technique. If MD's have to spend over 300 hours total to become physician acupuncturist and are using the same tools-acupuncture needles to do "medical acupuncture" then Physical Therapists should also be held to the same level of competency and skill.

Needling into the skin is and always will be the science and art of acupuncture.

Anyone who utilizes needles inserted into the human body should be certified by the same board NCCAOM-that governs needling patients in the United States whether it is dry needling which is acupuncture or acupuncture. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Lisa Borg Anderson, LAC