Placing a needle in the trigger points of the lower trapezius muscle leads to improvements in pain and pressure-pain threshold.
According to a new study, 71 subjects with chronic neck pain received needling treatment. Half of these subjects had the needle placed directly in a trigger point, while half of them received the needle somewhere else in the low trap other than the trigger point. Only the subjects who received the needle directly in the trigger point experienced improvements.
Conclusions
In traditional Chinese acupuncture, needles are arbitrarily placed based off of the 361 acupuncture points and 12 energy meridians. This study lends credence to the theory, however, that rather than arbitrarily inserting needles based off of tradition, needling can be more effective if utilized in regards to anatomical observations such as the presence of trigger points.
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