Concussion Recovery
Headaches and muscle tension are common symptoms of both acute concussion and post-concussion syndrome. Most people recover from concussion (mild traumatic brain injury, or mTBI) within two weeks of injury. But up to 30% of concussion patients have symptoms that persist for months or even years after their injury. Dry needling and acupuncture can help relieve certain post-concussion symptoms.
Concussion health issues may stem from ANS and/or NVC dysregulation, or other issues related to your injury. Up to 90% of people who sustain an mTBI experience a post-traumatic headache. That headache could be tension-type, migrainous, neurovascular, or some combination of the above. Doctors will often prescribe medications (ranging from over-the-counter NSAIDs to migraine meds). Sometimes these meds help to relieve symptoms — but sometimes they fail to provide pain relief or even aggravate other symptoms. Current research shows that acupuncture or dry needling is at least as effective as commonly prescribed medications for post-traumatic headaches. Meanwhile, it has none of the side effects or negative drug interactions, which is especially important for patients using migraine medications. Migraine meds often have the worst side effects for head trauma patients (since the side effects overlap with concussion symptoms) and can make diagnosis and treatment of post-concussion syndrome more complicated.
Dry needling can’t make an acute concussion go away, but it can help you feel better while you heal. With concussion and autonomic dysfunction comes muscle tension. A majority of the patients we treat have tension in the neck and shoulder, and dry needling can help in this way:
A small muscle segment stays constricted, even though the rest of the muscle contracts and relaxes normally. This causes strain and pain in connected areas. For example, a shoulder knot could lead to neck pain and headaches.
A physical therapist inserts a needle directly into the muscle knot. This causes the whole muscle to contract briefly.
The brain senses the muscle contraction and signals the muscle to relax.
The knot relaxes along with the rest of the muscle.
Through a combination of dry needling, physical therapy, and stretching, the patient recovers.
There are more physiological factors involved, such as increased blood flow and oxygenation of the affected muscle.
In summary, dry needling or acupuncture is helpful when:
You want some relief from physical concussion symptoms without resorting to medication.
You are pursuing other treatment types but want to speed up concussion recovery (or at least feel less awful during the process).
Below are some related research articles, please contact us for more info@performanceclinic.ca
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4486992/
https://academic.oup.com/milmed/article-abstract/180/2/132/4159991?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false