Dry needling: a de-meridian style of acupuncture

Recently, the educators of Dry Needling (DN) in the West often proclaime that DN is not acupuncture, and thus DN practitioners do not need to have the same training as acupuncturists. Their primary reason is that DN does not use the meridian theory of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). In this paper, the authors refuted this claim. Through a systemic review on the global “Acupuncture Fever”, there are several different manifestations of “De-Meridian” phenomena (meridian theory is not required for acupuncture and other related modalities). Although De-Meridian has played a positive role in the development of acupuncture, it does not mean “De-Acupuncture” (modalities derived from but different from acupuncture). Given the clear definition of acupuncture by WHO, even though DN has certain attributes of De-Meridian that is similar to other forms of novel needling therapies, all of them belong to acupuncture. DN is a style of contemporary acupuncture, also called Trigger points (TrPs) acupuncture. This is because not only these myofascial TrPs stimulated by DN have always been acupoints, the needles and techniques used in DN are no different than acupuncture. Moreover, the mechanisms of DN and acupuncture are one in the same. The development of modern DN theory and its application are closely associated with the clinical trials and research of acupuncture. On the other hand, researches and clinical applications on myofascial TrP have highlighted the importance of stimulating reflex points in the clinic. However, as it refuses to inherit the theory and experience from thousands of years of acupuncture practice, it has shown obvious shortcomings in clinical applications.