As many of you will know, my specialisation and clinical background are focused on MSK and sleep. Along these lines, I have taught dry needling (DN), functional foot, anatomy and clinical reasoning courses for the past 30 years. During the DN courses, one of the most 'off-topic' questions I receive relates to the effectiveness of DN for spasticity. Even though I have a rural and remote practice and treat a wide range of conditions, neuro/post-stroke is just not one of them. My answer in the past has been that I don't have any clinical experience and have directed people to Val Hopwood's book Acupuncture in Neurological Conditions, 2010. A confluence of inquiries and emails following my last ...

Acupuncture Safety and Pregnancy For those of you that are dry needling or practicing acupuncture, one of the delicate clinical areas is the interplay of needling during the first 3 months when the rate of spontaneous abortion is highest (20%). Along with good clinical practice (good communication and gaining client consent before needling) research is indicating that there is probably no link between needling and spontaneous abortion, in fact possibly the opposite. This has previously been discussed in a Clinical Kit newsletter. Another area relates to the needling of traditional chinese medicine points that have been graphically termed 'forbidden points'. Just published is an open source document in Acupuncture in Medicine http://aim.bmj.com/content/33/5/413?etoc titled The safety of obstetric acupuncture: forbidden points revisited....