Acupuncture injection therapy, also known as wet needling, biopuncture, and trigger point injection, is a modern take on this very old treatment strategy. Since the 1950s researchers all around the world have experimented with injecting various substances into acupuncture points and muscles to cause a positive treatment effect. We use these techniques in cases where acupuncture or acupuncture and herbal therapy alone would not be strong enough or fast enough to produce the results that we want for our patients.
This is an advanced technique and very few of the thousands of U.S. acupuncturists are actually trained to do this safely and effectively.
It works by injecting very small amounts of different substances into acupuncture points, trigger points, scars, wrinkles, and various other locations on the body. The substances we use vary from person to person and problem to problem and are all pharmaceutical grade. They can include: saline, B12, traumeel, zeel, calmvalera, procaine, lidocaine, dextrose, and many other substances.
The injections are rarely any more painful than acupuncture as the needles are extremely small and the total volume of substances put into the body are also very small.
Research has shown that these can be extremely effective ways of treating pain in patients. They are especially useful in people who cannot or will not use steroids or other drugs for their pain. The graph below is from the know as the MOZArT trial where combinations of Traumeel and Zeel were used to treat osteoarthritis in the knee. These substances were shown to be nearly as effective as corticosteroids and HA and more effective than Celebrex, Naproxen, Ibuprofen and diclofenec.
89% of pain patients showed significant improvement after receiving 5 injections.