ACUPUNCTURE

The initial appointment includes an interview, assessment, and preliminary treatment and lasts for about 60-90 minutes. Follow-up appointments last about 50 minutes.

First Office Visit Breakdown:

• Interview/assessment/physical exam: 20-30 minutes
• Needling/moxibustion process: 5-15 minutes
• Patient retention and relaxation time: 15-20 minutes
• Manual therapy: 10 minutes
• Wrap up and future treatment plan: 5 minutes

During the initial intake, I will give you a prognosis for treatment of your specific condition and answer any questions you may have.

Return Office Visit Breakdown:

• Follow-up assessment 5-10 minutes
• Needling/moxibustion process: 5-10 minutes
• Patient retention and relaxation time: 15-20 minutes
• Manual therapy: 10 minutes
• Wrap up: 5 minutes

The frequency and duration of treatments depend on the type of issue being addressed. In general, acute injuries require 1-2 treatments per week over the course of 4-6 weeks, while more chronic issues will require treatment on a weekly basis for at least 10-12 weeks. Usually, I allot 1-2 months of consistent treatment to get at a year’s worth of chronic symptoms. Something that has been going on for a decade could take a whole year to get the person as close to asymptomatic as possible. 

For patients with chronic lifelong pain or other issues that are not likely to be resolved, the goal is to get you to a place where you can have as much quality of life as you can. I like to get these patients down to a maintenance regimen of getting regular treatments every 4-6 weeks, a seasonal regimen if the condition warrants it, or whenever the patient is experiencing a return of symptoms or expects to have a return of symptoms such as after traveling. Some conditions are ongoing because there is no cure for them. These conditions may include auto-immune diseases, debilitating chronic diseases such as fibrormyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome, and lifestyle diseases like pain that is due to lifestyle factors such as work stress, poor posture, or sedentary habits. 

The benefits of acupuncture include improved immunity, decreased chronic stress response, decreased inflammation, and better regulation of cognitive and emotional processes. Detoxing mechanisms function better to get waste out of the body. Absorption mechanisms like digestion function better to get nutrients into the body.

Acupuncture treats a wide variety of conditions, the following is a list of some common conditions, but there are many more not listed. Please contact me or an acupuncturist near you to learn more about how acupuncture can help you. Even if acupuncture cannot help resolve a condition, it is a useful tool for symptom management. It also can clear away many layers of disease symptoms so that you can get closer to the root of the cause. This means that you can apply other therapies such as medications in a more focused way. 

Additionally, acupuncture helps with many side effects from medications. It can also support the liver and the kidneys during the medicative process, especially for people who have to be on medications longterm, or even life-long. Supporting the liver and kidneys means that you are protecting those organs and you can be stable on your medications for longer. With age, our livers and kidneys get weaker and this is accelerated by chronic or high medication dosage. Over time, your body gets less efficient at processing and detoxing, possibly leading to either less therapeutic potency or increased side effects. Taking care of these important organs during the process can be an important step to keep you stabilized for a longer.

The conditions listed below are not comprehensive! Please contact us to discuss your unique case.

Although we can feel powerless when facing medical concerns, patients have more power than they realize. Factors that determine healing include the patient’s own constitution such as age; past, present, and future lifestyle habits; and genetic predispositions. The speed of recovery can also be influenced by the patient. Compliance is key. Herbs and supplements, dietary recommendations, other lifestyle recommendations, stretches and exercises, even medications and other care such as physical therapy or massage can speed up the process of most conditions if the patient is as consistent and compliant as possible. Maintaining a regimen of self-care after recovery is also important to minimize relapse. You are always working against time and nature; wear and tear is ongoing for the human body once it has matured. Remember that health is not an endpoint. Sometimes we can dwell on the future or the past, but the only moment where we have power is the present.