Dry needling in Torremolinos

What dry needling is and when it makes sense

Dry needling is an invasive physiotherapy technique in which a fine needle is inserted, without injecting any drug (hence “dry”), into a myofascial trigger point. A trigger point is a sensitive spot within a tight muscle that hurts when pressed and can reproduce referred pain elsewhere, such as a headache that starts in the trapezius or buttock pain that travels down the leg.

Needling the trigger point usually produces a local twitch response, a small involuntary contraction, after which the muscle tends to relax and the pain to ease. Today its effect is understood more as pain modulation than as “undoing a knot”.

Dry needling can help with myofascial pain in the neck, back, shoulder, buttock or leg, but it is not a stand-alone treatment: its aim is to open a window of less pain so you can make progress with therapeutic exercise and correct whatever overloaded the muscle.

At Centro Ubud it is performed by physiotherapists trained in invasive physiotherapy, with sterile single-use material and, in higher-risk areas such as the chest or near nerves and blood vessels, under ultrasound guidance, which increases precision and safety.

Before needling, we examine the muscle and confirm that the pain has a myofascial component. If your pain mainly comes from a tendon, a joint or a nerve, other techniques will be more appropriate, and we will tell you so clearly.