Effect of Dry Needling in Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain

Pain is a sensation felt in one or more parts of the body, and it is a bad feeling that bothers people. Every person who feels pain learns about pain early in life through experiences with injury. In recent years, chronic pain has begun to be accepted as a disease rather than a symptom. Therefore, pain does not always mean tissue damage. Although scientific studies have made rapid progress in our perspective on chronic pain, the mechanisms of pain have not yet been fully explained. Though many things have been tried, the continuation of pain and the inability to fully explain the pain mechanisms have increased the interest in complementary medicine applications. It has been shown that trigger points accompany many musculoskeletal pathologies within the concept of central sensitization, which has an important role in the pathogenesis of chronic pain. Dry needling therapy in trigger point therapy is often used as a minimally invasive complementary medicine option to manage pain. In this study, information about pain was examined in the light of current literature. We aimed to review the effects of dry needling therapy on the musculoskeletal system in chronic pain disease groups from a different and up-to-date perspective. After examining the literature and the concept of chronic pain and dry needling, the following conclusion was reached; When the effectiveness of dry needling is examined in chronic painful disease groups in the musculoskeletal system, dry needling, which is a minimally invasive method, is effective, but more studies are needed.