Jan 25

Jan 25 Meet Nicky DPT

Hey everyone! My name is Nicky Owens, PT, DPT, Cert DN. and I am a native Phoenician! I have been a Physical Therapist for 8 years in the outpatient orthopedics field and I specialize in myofascial release via tools and cupping, dry needling, spinal manipulations, blood flow restriction, and overall rehab from injuries.

I absolutely love helping people feel better after one session and helping them get back to their normal lives. I work with acute injuries, chronic conditions, and post-operative surgeries mostly. I work full-time in an outpatient orthopedics company called Endurance Rehab in Arcadia, but am now taking cash pay patients at Your Strength on Saturday’s and I couldn’t be more excited!

Working with Katie has been my dream since college, working one to one in one building with Physical Therapy, personal training, and massage therapy where we can all work with each other to help an individual get back to their lives.

Personally, I love hiking, kickboxing, trail running, and going to sports games (Go Suns, Cardinals, DBacks!). I love arcade games, pool, brunch/happy hour, relaxing by the pool, and traveling (when I have time). I am a huge animal lover and would love to open a cat/dog coffee shop one day to help animals find their forever homes.

My one piece of advice I would give is to never give up on your dreams and goals. There is always a way if there’s will power and proper motivation!

Lets Talk About Dry Needling

Dry needling has become such a popular and phenomenal tool Physical Therapists use to release muscular trigger points with a very small needle.

We use this needle to piston through the tissue and muscle to generate a localized twitch response to improve blood flow and oxygen to the muscle to facilitate faster healing while reducing tension, almost immediately.

Initially, it feels like a small poke, then you can feel the twitches when the trigger points are hit. Once they are in, they can either be removed immediately or left in with electrical stimulation to over-fatigue the muscle to reduce the tension of that muscle even more.

Afterwards, most people report muscle soreness, like they had just had a hard workout, for anywhere up to 1-2 days. It can sometimes leave a small bruise, cause fatigue, and I have had only a few report nausea afterwards.

Dry needling can be used for anyone except those with a bleeding disorder, on blood thinners (such as eliquis), have any active cancers, or currently pregnant. Pregnancy isn’t a contraindication, but I don’t want to take any chance to speed up labor, so I prefer not to dry needle soon-to-be Mothers. Otherwise, I use dry needling for almost every condition: headaches, TMJ, neck/back pain, nerve pain in the arm/leg, muscle strains, all tendinitis conditions, plantar fasciitis, patellofemoral pain, osteoarthritis, and the list goes on!