Pain and Neck Dysfunction Following Dry Needling With and Without Intramuscular Electrical Stimulus.

Pain and Neck Dysfunction Following Dry Needling With and Without Intramuscular Electrical Stimulus With 6 Week Follow Up

Participants will be 18-59 years old who are recruited through a convenience sample from the UMHB/Belton community. There will be a randomized control trial consisting of three groups. Each participant will be assigned based on their order of entry to the study group assignment and then randomly organized via computer generation into 3 groups of 20 participants including a control group, a dry needling group (DN), and a dry needling E-stim group (DN-ES), resulting in approximately 60 total participants. Participants in the DN and DN-ES groups will be treated four times; at weeks 0, 2, 4 and 6 of the study. Data will be collected at weeks 4, 6 and 12 in all groups.

Interventions per group:

Control: none

DN: 20-30 seconds of DN per trigger point in each involved trapezius muscle, needles rest in situ 10 min, needles removed.

DN-ES: 20-30 seconds of DN per trigger point (TrP) in each involved trapezius muscle, DC ES attached to needles crossing the most reactive TrP and current set to strong, but comfortable intensity at 10 MHz for 10 min, needles removed.

Inclusion Criteria:

1. 18-59 years old
2. have an active email account
3. have at least one palpable active trigger point (TrP) (located in one or both upper trapezius)
4. English speaking

Exclusion Criteria:

1. current treatment or diagnosis related to cancer
2. active local or systemic infection
3. neurologic deficit
4. cognitive deficit
5. pregnancy
6. connective tissue disease and/or autoimmune disorder
7. tobacco use
8. received previous DN treatments within 6 weeks of the study,
9. experienced unilateral or bilateral neck/shoulder pain continuously for 3 months or longer
10. Neck Disability Index score < 6
11. Numerical Pain Rating Scale score < 3