I am a reformed acupuncturist. The concept of meridians and points is a delusion and the same success can be achieved with random needling with plenty of enhancement from touching, and talking to the patient. Injecting a trigger point makes more sense than dry needling. The mechanism is likely to be the same as for acupuncture-a combination of the needle and a great deal of placebo. Thank you, I intend to try this as I find back pain patients challenging. Despite walking into our ED the Nurses insist on lying people on a bed and it takes hours to mobilize them.
thanks for your comment John. agree that the practice of making back pain patients supine is counter-productive. I recommend your department purchase several exercise bikes and when a back pain patient presents, they are immediately triaged to a spin class.
Compelling subject. I just had a patient last night who two weeks earlier had been discharged with occipital neuralgia and protracted headache, who presented identically. Per the inpt neuro note, they recommended outpatient trigger point injections. I was very tempted to try this, but this would be a large variance in normal practice pattern. I would be more comfortable with this technique if there was peer acceptance.
I think as we evolve strategies to manage the ballooning population of opioid addicted patients who present to emergency in pain, we will be doing a lot more trigger point injections; hopefully you will feel that his technique is more peer accepted going forward.
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Athanasios T., Dr - November 2, 2016 7:58 AM
Any literature to back this up? I will need some back-up, if I am to use this tomorrow.
Thanks
Reuben Strayer (@emupdates) - November 2, 2016 5:53 PM
here you go:
https://goo.gl/oRVt3P
John W. - November 13, 2016 2:54 PM
I am a reformed acupuncturist. The concept of meridians and points is a delusion and the same success can be achieved with random needling with plenty of enhancement from touching, and talking to the patient. Injecting a trigger point makes more sense than dry needling. The mechanism is likely to be the same as for acupuncture-a combination of the needle and a great deal of placebo. Thank you, I intend to try this as I find back pain patients challenging. Despite walking into our ED the Nurses insist on lying people on a bed and it takes hours to mobilize them.
Reuben Strayer (@emupdates) - November 13, 2016 3:52 PM
thanks for your comment John. agree that the practice of making back pain patients supine is counter-productive. I recommend your department purchase several exercise bikes and when a back pain patient presents, they are immediately triaged to a spin class.
Katherine B. - November 17, 2016 5:45 AM
Compelling subject. I just had a patient last night who two weeks earlier had been discharged with occipital neuralgia and protracted headache, who presented identically. Per the inpt neuro note, they recommended outpatient trigger point injections. I was very tempted to try this, but this would be a large variance in normal practice pattern. I would be more comfortable with this technique if there was peer acceptance.
Reuben Strayer (@emupdates) - November 17, 2016 7:06 PM
I think as we evolve strategies to manage the ballooning population of opioid addicted patients who present to emergency in pain, we will be doing a lot more trigger point injections; hopefully you will feel that his technique is more peer accepted going forward.