I received a pneumothorax this past year from dry needling. I am not going to get into the details of the incident for legal purposes. However, I am a healthy young male that was being seen for shoulder pain. The needle went through my ribs and ended up puncturing my lung, which resulted in a 4-day hospital stay. The provider told me not to worry and that the pain I was feeling was due to a “muscle spasm”. Even I, (a student) knew that an initial sign of a pneumothorax was coughing due to the irritation of the nerves within the thoracic cavity. I realize there are risks for everything, but it is ridiculous that I even questioned the provider while I was in the office right after the incident happened about a possible lung puncture and it was completely ignored. If I didn’t take myself to the ER and proceeded to just go home like recommended, the health consequences could have been much worse.

There needs to be more regulation and training for dry needling within the state of VA.  A couple weekend courses are not sufficient enough to be inserting needles into someone’s body.