Stop Chasing Pain: Dry Needling for Chiropractors | Dr. Aaron Wiegand of ChiroNeedle

Here's this thing. It's called dry needling, and it helps people get relief really fast. It's really effective. It doesn't cost a lot to administer. And also here's how you integrate that into a multimodal therapy regimen or care plan so that you get these people not just out of pain, but then into doing functional rehab so they can get back to doing the things in life that pain was keeping them from doing.

Hey, everybody. As promised, I am excited to be here with Dr. Wiegand, the founder and CEO of Chiro Needle. We're going to talk all about dry needling today. And I'm excited because is a topic that has gained a ton of momentum and Kyle doing some awesome things in the space. Dr. Wiegan, thanks for coming on and chatting today.

Hey, thanks, doc. I'm happy to be here. I'm super excited.

Well, it is my pleasure. I want to pick it up with where you got interested in dry needling. So what was kind of your aha moment that made you realize that dry needling was a missing piece in your practice?

Well, you know, it's sort of like every superhero's origin story, right? You start out, I was injured. I was. I went down hard. It was a 13 millimeter disc extrusion at my L4 disc. And I. I know my students have probably heard this ad nauseam, but. But I have to tell it. And I couldn't go to work that day. I couldn't see patients. And, you know, if you're. If you're a loan practitioner, that's a. That's a scary day. So, you know, I went to a physical therapist that was next to my office, and I said, look, anything you can do to get me through the day, I be. You know, And I didn't have much confidence because, you know, I'm like, well, physical therapy is good for shoulders, good for head. But could they really deal with this problem I had? And I didn't even know I had this disc extrusion. I just knew I couldn't move. So I get in there and this PT who is wet behind the ears looks, you know, like he just graduated like that morning walks up and pulls out a needle and I swear it was. It. It was at least this long because it was a. It had to be at least 100 millimeters from my memory. And he goes, hey, we're going to put this right near glute mead. And. And then we're gonna. We're gonna use point stem and. And then we'll kind of Turn the muscle off and then bring it back online. I'm like, what kind of wizardry is this? Like, you're just going to turn off a spasm of muscle just like that. Number one, who gave you needles? What? So, but at the time, if they would have said, you know, hey, listen, we're going to stick your head in this lion's mouth. And I would have been like, yeah, whatever you need to do, man. You know, let's do it. So lo and behold, he takes his needle and then use this point stem on it, and immediately I could feel it kind of like relax and I could move. And the pain went down significantly. And. And then we did some exercises to kind of like bring it back online. And, man, if it wasn't 70% better instantaneously. And I was just so grateful because I got to go and work that day. I got to see patients, and then immediately I'm like thinking to myself, why does he get to do this? How? I've been. I go to chiropractic seminars all the. I'm a. I'm a second generation chiropractor. I'm a chiropractic junkie. I've never seen this before anywhere. And I go, and I wish I could do this for people. I mean, that instantaneous relief from pain, that is excruciating. So I called my board and I said, board, can we do this? And the board said, well, we're not quite sure yet. And I'm like, that's kind of your whole thing. I need to know whether or not I can do stuff. And so after a few conversations with them, I decided I'm going to go get training. So I spent the next five years pretty much with physical therapists, learning dry needling. I studied under a great physical therapist, Sue Falsone, and she was the first female trainer in MLB history for the Dodgers. She was so impressive and really took me under her wing as this weird chiropractor in these PT classes. And I started taking what I learned and went back to my practice and integrated it into what was really a lot of passive modalities. I realized I was like, you know, these people come in. I'm doing adjustments, I'm doing stem, I'm doing heat, I'm doing traction, I'm doing, you know, but I'm like, man, I'm not really, you know, really good at functional rehab. And I realized in the dry needling camp, it was all about getting someone moving and then perpetuating that motion. And not only just the needling was One thing, but it was really a catalyst to change how I thought about practice. Getting more into active care, less reliant on passive modalities. And as I tell my students, you know, if it. If they could buy on Amazon, you probably don't want it in your office because, you know, you want things that make you a doctor. And I. And so I said. And so I went, and it changed how I practice. But then I also realized, man, you know, chiropractors and PTs, there's a lot of similarities. And I learned a lot from them. But there was some. There's a lot of big difference. One, our focus on the spine. You know, we can rehab knees, ankles, joints, you know, all sorts of things, but we really. People come in for spine pain. And it led to unique protocols I was developing and how we integrate that with what chiropractors do, which is, where do you fit this in with the adjustment? And then how do we integrate functional rehab in a real way that patients are compliant and it's fun to do? And how do you charge for all this? I mean, all these things. And I found myself developing these kind of protocols. Well, I didn't think I was doing anything special. I just was just like everybody else. You're in your practice, you're focused in. But then Covid hit, and I found myself with a lot of time on my hands. And I went into my office and I just said, you know, I'm going to create a curriculum. I don't care if anybody ever even shows up. I just. I need to get this on paper. Even if nothing else, I send it to my friends and they can. It helps them. And I created a class. And then we had 10 people in our first class. I said, well, this is kind of fun. And my other classmates that were in Texas called me, and they said, would you come and do this for us? I'm like, I don't even know if I can, but. And then we did that. We went to Austin, and then Austin led to Dallas, and Dallas led to Houston, and we started just going and just. I started booking classes and helping chiropractors. Really. I take them through the evolution that I had, which was one, here's this thing. It's called dry needling, and it helps people get relief really fast. It's really effective. It doesn't cost a lot to administer. And. And also, here's how you integrate that into a multimodal therapy regimen or care plan so that you get these people not just out of pain, but then into doing functional rehab. So they can get back to doing the things in life that pain was keeping them from doing. And how do you think about that? And how do we also get quick? Because we gotta start getting faster. If you notice, I don't even want to go get my own groceries. You know, I don't want everything going to an office three times a week and spending an hour there. Just, it's not in the zeitgeist anymore, right? The patience for people. So I said, look, we gotta get fast and we gotta get real effective real fast. And that means getting people out of pain and back to their life faster where they could be in and out of your office in under 30 minutes, get that relief that they're looking for. None of this, well, you have to wait and see. And how it's going to take time to work. That doesn't cut it anymore. People are instant gratification people. So I taught my, I teach my students how to, you know, quickly assess what is the problem that we're dealing with. They come in with this pain. What's the function that's causing the pain, the dysfunction? How do we address that with the needle, Maybe use the needles, even a diagnostic tool to see what structure is causing the pain. And then how do we, what do we do with that increase in pain free function that we get right away? Where do we integrate the adjustment? And then how do we integrate basic exercises? I keep seeing these exercises on social media where people look like they're auditioning for Cirque du Soleil. And I'm like, I don't know what patient population you're dealing with, but I want, you know, I need people, people need basic, basic rehab. They can only handle maybe one or two exercises a week that they can integrate into their lives. And so how do we simplify this? How do we get it low cost so our new docs don't have to go spend a bunch of money to get real effective real fast and be competitive. And how do you integrate it in a chiropractic low overhead situation? So that's what I teach. I also help my patients integrate this into personal injury, which is just a great tool for it, and start rethinking about. Chiropractic is not just a delivery of adjustments, but rather a delivery of physical medicine, pain management. And I want us to start competing on that level, you know, be, be on the level of, you know, real problems that people come in with that they could Google. They're like, yeah, I have that. And those people have choices. Usually it's pain Management, some other stuff they don't want to do and I wouldn't want them to do either. But now you can start helping address these conditions with dry needling and be at that level rather than just being another, another doc and another box that's just delivering adjustments. So it's really, it puts them at a different level and that's what I'm trying to get out there to do for these docs.

That makes a lot of sense to me and let's dig deeper there. Who's the ideal provider? Who's that ideal chiropractor that comes into a chiro needle course and gets the most out of it?

I have this thing for new docs. I love new docs because they're hungry, they're open minded, they're ready to integrate something into their office, they want new tools and they want something that makes them special and sets them apart, but also something that isn't completely put them in debt for the rest of their life. We can, you know, decompression tables and shockwaves, all these things, they're great tools but right off the get go, you know, it's, it's hard, you know, to come by those things. It's a high risk. You gotta, you gotta make sure it's in your budget. Whereas a needle, you know, a set of needles, 25 cents, 50 cents, doesn't cost a lot. Really effective. And only doctors can do it. You know, PTS and Cairos. I teach nurse practitioners. A lot of people are doing this technique but they're all professionals and they can't just go down the street and get it. And it's like your adjustment. Unlike a machine, it's one of those things that you get better and better at over time and it sets you apart.

Yeah, that is definitely powerful. And when you think about a chiropractor coming in to the course, what are they going to learn? What are some of the take home pieces? How do they implement this in their practice? I know a lot of docs listening have heard of dry needling, but probably haven't take any formal courses to really understand what it means for them and what it means for their practice. What, how do you think about that?

You have the docs that haven't done any needling techniques, right? And they come in and we give them protocols that are condition specific because people come in and they say, I have this, I need you to fix this thing. You know, and a lot of times historically chiropractors try to do this, this where they dissuade Them into, no, no, no. What you really have is this, and I can fix that. Instead, this allows you to go direct to the problem. Hey, you have migraines. I have a protocol for that. You have tmj. I have a protocol for that. Impingement plantar fasciitis. I have a protocol for that. Disc herniations. There's the things that walk in your office. Here's what you do. And the surprise to me was when docs started asking, well, what do I do after? And I go, do whatever you do. And they're like, well, I don't know what to do afterwards. I go, okay, well, what about exercises and rehab? And, you know, a lot of chiropractors, there's. There's this fuzzy spot where it's like, man, I really don't know what exercises to give. I don't know what the evidence says about what exercises. And do I need a program or do I need an app they can do? And I'm like, no, just show them one exercise. If they can show it to you when they come back, they probably know it. And lo and behold, my students come back and say, you know what my favorite part of the class was, honestly? Learning rehab, learning what exercises to do for these conditions. So I have something to tell them to do that's simple and effective. And so we really started integrating that stuff. Now. Then you have the docs who come in, and they have acupuncture training. Now. I'm certified in acupuncture as well, only because my patients kept asking me to do acupuncture just because I had needles. And I was like, look, I don't know anything about it. So finally I went and got that certification. So I empathize with acupuncture docs, and it's a great technique. It's a wonderful tradition. But this is something totally different. And if you already are into acupuncture, this is just going to make more sense. And they integrate beautifully. And so I talk to those docs specifically when I go to those classes. So if you go, look, it's going to be. It's going to be one. Obviously. How do you handle these needles? The first half hour, needles are flying everywhere. People are dropping them on the ground. They're like, what do I do if this happens? And we just go through that and we get real comfortable with just handling. It's like the first time you adjust your buddy. We're on chiropractic school. That first adjustment, you're shaky, and then everyone has to get through that awkward phase. And then they also get the rehab and by the time they're done, they have a recipe. I believe I have the most beautiful notes in dry needling. I spent a lot of time on these to make sure that look and when you. Because you can't. It's 24 hours or 20 hours. It depends on, you know, what state you're in or what we do. But that's a lot to learn in two days and, and to retain. So I want to make sure I gave them pictures and where so that they, when they go back, they can, they can say, okay, what do I do for this again? And they can reference those things. And so you're going to have really just. I hope it expands your scope. So now, before, maybe you weren't doing shoulders and you weren't doing lateral epicondylitis. Well, now you are, you know, now you're confident you can do these things. So I really want to expand kind of what, who you treat, who walks in your door so you can treat more and solve more problems more effectively. That's powerful.

Let's follow up on that, which is how do you see dry needling really aligning with what I'm going to call the evolving role of a chiropractor in musculoskeletal care and physical medicine. How does this fit in?

Man, the word evolving, you said it. I mean, the dentistry kind of went through this process in the 80s where it went from 80, 20. Right. 80 own their practice, 20% were employees. And. And then it's flipped to where now it's. The vast majority are employees. Chiropractors are kind of in this awkward stage where, you know, the, the option of, of getting a loan and getting your own practice and, and, and do it is not maybe on the table for them. And so they start off working in different arenas. Some of them are working corporate offices. They're the corporate chiropractor. Some of them are working in multidisciplinary offices, which is probably where a lot of them are going to end up going. Like I work in a multidisciplinary pain management clinic. I love it. I professionals. I see things that I would have never seen in my office and I learned from people things that I would have never learned. You know, and some people are being patient advocates. They're out there kind of helping, you know, be the conduit between the medical doctor and the patient. Because, man, we get patients, we're all heart, and sometimes putting us, you know, as the interpreter does great things. So the Roles of chiropractors are changing. And yes, we're evolving. I mean, we have this boomer population and they're not getting any younger or their joints aren't at least. And, and if you've ever met, you know, the, you know, if you met, especially if you have parents that are in this group, you know, it's, they, they're living longer. And the life expectancy at the turn of the century, we think was about 46 years old. It's actually my age. And you know, you didn't, you died before your eight. Your, your joints did, right? And now we're kind of running in this situation where we got a bunch of people and their joints are running out, even though they're, they have a lot of life in them. And they're like, well, I want to keep doing things, but they don't want to rely on drugs and they don't want to get, you know, they don't want to rely on surgeries. And, and, and so they want something. How do you, how do you, can you reduce pain naturally? And if you can be that person who serves that need for this population, just wants to stay active, keep living their life, but wants their bones and joints to be a little less painful or a lot less painful than they would be otherwise without drugs and surgery, then, man, you're going to serve a big population. There's a demand for that. That's, that's where the demand is at reducing pain. N. Man, I just, if chiropractors can get good at that, get focused on it. And, and if you, you know, I know there's the wellness guys out there going, hey, I don't want to chase pain. That's fine. But pain is bad for your health. Pain is bad for your health, it's bad for your mental health, it's bad for your physical health. I mean, if you've been to any chiropractic seminar, you know, nociception leads to increased sympathetic tone, which increases the stress response, which means a lot of bad things. Immune system goes in the dumper. Digestion, metabolism, mental health, it all goes in the dumper. So if we can reduce pain, the evidence is there, folks. If you can get people out of pain, you're making them healthy. I think, I think being a pain management doctor is being a wellness doctor and doing dry needling, integrating chiropractic. There's no other. I know I'm long winded on this, but there's no other profession. Like, I'll put this way, when I had disc herniation What I wished was that I could go and get an epidural right away because I was disabled. I mean, I couldn't do anything. No adjustments is going to help this, right? And I, I wish I could get an adjustment, but then get on decompression and then get a physical therapist that knew good core workout and could kind of bring me back to life all in one place. But you can't. That doesn't exist. You got to go get the pain management to get the injection, so you get a little bit of relief and then you got to go. And then if you have a good chiropractor, you got to finalize decompression and it's a good adjuster. And then a lot of times that chiropractor doesn't know how to do a core rehab program or isn't. Or maybe it's too busy or it's just not in a. And then there you'd have to find no more. With dry needling, you can be the pain management because you find that you put the needle in the spot and that does a lot of the heavy lifting, according to the evidence they call placebo effect. But they don't realize it's just that the needle is wildly effective. And then if you're a good chiropractor and you're a good adjuster and you have a just a modicum of rehab experience and knowledge, you can be all three in one and there's no other profession on the planet that could compete with you.

I think there's a lot of people listening and watching that are definitely interested in learning more. So what's the easiest and best place? What are some of the courses that you have available and where can docs go to find more of.

I teach primarily in Arizona and in Texas, but I am real, you know, I, I. Wherever people want me, I will show up. If you, you know, if, if you have dry needling in your state, I love to come out and, and teach a group of docs out. You know, I've done it for everywhere from two to, to 20 docs. It just, you know, I want to go and I want to help these doctors grow and learn. I want the profession to help more and more people. I teach a, I have an extremity class and a spine class. And so we have a whole two days of just spine and then we have a whole two days of extremity and tmj and then we talk about the rehab for all those things. We talk about the physiologic Basis behind the efficacy of dry needling. You can go to chironeedle.com that kind of has our schedule classes. You can always reach out to me. I'm real grassroots if you want me to come, though. I'm like, I feel like we're a touring band sometimes. Hey, let's go to Tecepsie. You know, what's up, Iowa? Let's go wherever it's I'm trying to get into. We're trying to look at Colorado right now. Just, you know, I'll get on a plane with my gear and just, you sit down and man, you know, it's a technique class. So all I need is a bunch of docs that are willing to hang out. Still excited about chiropractic and pumped. Want to eat, you know, hungry to learn, learn something new and get together like we did in technique lab where we all hang out, we learn something new. Because I tell you what, nothing's more boring than going to a technique or some sort of seminar for hours. Would you sit and watch a PowerPoint about how if you buy this thing, it's going to do a thing that, you know, No, I like to use your hand. I want to do stuff. I'm a doer and I want my chiropractors to be using their hands and their brains to help a lot of people. So that's, that's kind of how we. That's kind of where I'm coming from. And you can tell I'm just super excited about it and just, I want to come everywhere. So. Chironeedle.com you can see us on Instagram as well, but. Or you can always just reach out and I'm happy to talk to you. Those are some resources.

I absolutely love it. So docs listening and watching. If you're interested in dry needling, or maybe you're still not even sure about dry needling, but you know, you'd love to have an affordable, effective and powerful tool to add into your practice. I'm going to encourage you. Check out chironeedle.com connect. Connect with Dr. Aaron and his team and get coached up, get trained and add something into your practice that gives you a new avenue to help people. That gives you a new avenue to communicate and also to deliver the highest level of patient care possible. Really appreciate you coming on and chatting today, aaron.

Hey, thanks, Dr. Jeff.

Thanks so much for checking out that interview. If you liked it, we have plenty more available. You can check out the next interview right here.