A 48 year old gentleman developed low back pain after a fall from a bicycle 1 year ago. He was physically a very active person and would go for jogging, treks and was regular about going to the gym. But the back pain had limited his physical activities. It was particularly bad in the morning after waking up when the pain score varied between 6 out of 10 to 8 out of 10. The pain was limited to the low back and did not radiate downwards to his buttocks or legs. He was quite stressed out with the pain as he felt that this was something he would have to live with and he would have to curtail all his outdoor activities which he enjoyed.
A detailed history and clinical examination revealed that the low back pain was probably myofascial in origin secondary to the fall he had a year ago and I felt that he would benefit from a regime comprising of dry needling to relieve the chronic spasm of the muscles of his low back and regular exercises to strengthen his core muscles. He underwent 3 sessions of dry needling over a course of 1 month. The effect of dry needling was quite dramatic. He had 50% relief with the first session of dry needling and after the second session he had 80% relief and he stopped taking any analgesics. He was also much less stressed out as he felt that he need no longer live with the back pain that had, hitherto, curtailed his daily activities as well as his outdoor activities since the last one year. He did not require any further sessions and he was advised to continue with his daily back exercises and go for regular walks to prevent any further episodes of back pain.
Listen in to what this gentleman has to say about his experience with dry needling for back pain…