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It was discovered that if a needle is placed into an area with irritated nerve fibers, the muscle would twitch spontaneously. These twitches simultaneously break the shortening of the muscle fibers. This permits the muscles to adequately relax so that the pain cycle can be broken and healing can occur.
The Automated Intramuscular Stimulation (A-IMS) procedure we use at IPS is focused on breaking this pain cycle, thereby relieving muscle shortening. In this way the treatment is regenerative, not merely temporary as most pain treatments are.
In A-IMS, a thin needle is inserted into the trigger point region of the muscle band and the needle stimulates the muscle mechanically to elicit local twitch responses (LTRs).
According to Dr. Hong (C.Z. Hong, 1994, Am. J. Phys. Med. Rehabil., Vol. 4, pp256): “It is essential to elicit local twitch responses (LTRs) during dry needling for maximum effectiveness (in relieving pain).”
Recently, Shah and others (Shah J. et al., 2003, Arch Phys Med Rehabil,84:A4) at the National Institute of Health have shown experimentally that abnormal levels of chemicals that cause pain and muscle contraction are immediately corrected when local twitch responses (LTRs) are elicited.
Clinically, it has been observed that the treatment effectiveness is greater with stronger LTRs and greater number of LTRs. In this aspect, the A-IMS method that we use is superior to the manual dry needling method.
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