Medical Acupuncture (also known as Dry Needling) is a therapeutic modality utilising the insertion of fine needles. It is a western adaptation on Chinese acupuncture using current knowledge of anatomy, physiology and pathology, and the principles of evidence based medicine.

About two millennia ago, the Chinese made the significant discovery that needling can influence various functions of the body, and explained this in terms of the ideology current at that time. The conceptual advances since the scientific revolution, particularly the relatively recent discoveries of the neurotransmitters and neuroplasticity, have lead to a new understanding of the mechanisms of acupuncture and justify the use of a new term, WMA. The term ‘‘Western Medical Acupuncture’’ is used to distinguish it from acupuncture used as part of Chinese traditional medicine.

While Western medical acupuncture has evolved from Chinese acupuncture, its practitioners no longer adhere to concepts such as Yin/Yang, 5 elements and circulation of qi, and regard acupuncture as part of conventional medicine rather than a complete "alternative medical system". It acts mainly by stimulating the nervous system, and its known modes of action include local antidromic axon reflexes, segmental and extrasegmental neuromodulation, and other central nervous system effects. 

It is effective in treating: 

• Musculoskeletal issues and pain
• Myofascial activation and release
• Postoperative pain, recovery and nausea
• Stress relaxation
• Migraines and tension headaches
• Osteoarthritis relief 
• Fibromyalgia relief 
• Improvement in sleep quality

How does acupuncture work?

The main therapeutic effects of needling are achieved through stimulation of the nervous system (sensory stimulation), with some overlap with transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation and spinal cord stimulation. Acupuncture needling has local effects through local antidromic axon reflexes, releasing neuropeptides such as calcitonin gene related peptide and increasing local nutritive blood flow, improving, for example, the function of salivary glands. In the spinal cord and brain, there is well established evidence that acupuncture causes the release of opioid peptides and serotonin. The clinical effects on musculoskeletal pain are best explained by inhibition of the nociceptive pathway at the dorsal horn (segmental effects) by activation of the descending inhibitory pathways, and possibly by local or segmental effects on myofascial trigger points.

There are clearly other actions of acupuncture on the central nervous system that remain to be fully explored, including its effect on nausea. Imaging studies with functional MRI and positron emission tomography have provided good evidence of effects on various brain centres involved in pain control, notably the limbic structures, including the insula. These effects are somewhat greater than are seen when the skin is simply stimulated by needles, and seem to depend on elicitation of the particular needling sensation.

Another clinical area in which acupuncture is widely used is myofascial pain, a condition which remains controversial but which has been most fully explored within conventional medicine. No satisfactory mode of action has yet been described, but it is noteworthy that myofascial trigger points described conventionally match some of the traditional acupuncture points described many centuries ago.