Needle retention time

What they taught me in school was that actual retention time wasn’t terribly important as long as it was in the window of 15 minutes to an hour. Any less isn’t enough time, and leaving them in longer could potentially have a negative effect. I haven’t had much luck finding any actual research into the physiological response to different needle retention times. Browsing through a variety of research articles it seems like 30 minutes is the most commonly used retention time. I’ve worked with several practitioners and everyone of them has used a retention time between 25 and 30 minutes.

As an aside, a particularly important aspect of any treatment is getting people to actually rest. With this in mind, sometimes more time is better simply for that reason alone. Vice-versa for people who are very uncomfortable with needles, less time may be better for them.