Acupuncture vs Dry Needling- Education Makes All the Difference

One of Jade Stars' core values is to educate our patients and the community about Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and the training and education our providers have.

We often hear stories from our patients about their past experiences with dry needling and many don’t understand the difference between acupuncture and dry needling. A quick answer is education and training.

A TCM practitioner has approximately 3,000-5,000 hours of training, TCM is an entire healing paradigm that includes acupuncture, Chinese herbs, cupping, gua sha, and moxibustion, vs that of a physical therapist or chiropractor that may do ‘dry needling’ they have approximately 100 hours of training.

The term ‘Dry Needling’ has been controversial, it is essentially needling patients with acupuncture needles but no or very little training in acupuncture points for pathways. Many believe the term ‘dry needling’ was a term coined so those performing it can bypass meaningful training.

Lynn Jaffee wrote a great piece that really breaks down the huge differences between ‘dry needling’ and acupuncture.

You can read her piece here: The Difference Between Chinese Medicine, Acupuncture, and Dry Needling