What is Acupuncture?

What is Acupuncture?:

Involves the insertion of extremely fine painless needles into specific points (acupuncture points) located on pathways that run through the body known as "Meridians".
Meridians are bio-electromagnetic pathways in the body (recently confirmed by radioisotope testing) that directly influence and control the physical attributes of the nerves, blood vessels, and lymph vessels.
By direct stimulation of the meridians, acupuncture is able to improve the body's communication system (hormones and nervous system) resulting in the body healing itself. Due to this fact, acupuncture (given time) can treat, cure, or help most, if not all, major and minor illnesses.
With acupuncture treatments the patient should feel no major discomfort during the treatment and in general the patient will feel very relaxed and calm.
We encourage patients to have eaten within several hours prior to an acupuncture treatment, especially if you you are prone to low blood sugar..

Acupuncture Treatment Process:

First time acupuncture treatment will usually take at least 1hour and 30 minutes in total, due to more time for assessing and diagnosing the patient.
Typical follow-up acupuncture treatment is one hour in length; 15-20 minutes of consulting with the patient; 20-30 minutes of actual lying or sitting with needles in the patient; another 10 minutes for any minor follow up care like bodywork, cupping, gua sha, further consulting or re-eaxmining, etc.
To insure best possible diagnosis and results with acupuncture, the acupuncturist will ask the patient numerous symptom questions plus in depth medical history and relevant lab data and imaging will be reviewed also.
The patient's tongue, pulses, abdomen, and area of illness will also be examined which helps the practitioner choose the most appropriate acupuncture points for the treatment.
A standard acupuncture treatment is painless and is often combined with herbal medicine, food-vitamin therapy, diet & lifestyle changes, meditation, and/or massage to expedite the healing process to help insure longer lasting results and/or permanency.
You may notice during a series of treatments that the acupuncturist will change needle combinations/patterns periodically. This would be similar to your medical doctor changing your prescription periodically until a desired result is obtained.
We generally recommend at least one acupuncture treatment per week with regular consecutive weekly sessions to get the desired results.
Patients may experience a reduction in symptoms within in the first few treatments, and in most cases will achieve long lasting or permanent positive results with further acupuncture sessions.
Total treatments necessary to reduce or resolve a health condition with acupuncture is dependent upon on the severity, type, and length of the illness.
After your first few treatments, the acupuncturist can observe your symptomatic changes and give the patient a general estimation of how many treatments that would be necessary to resolve or reduce the medical condition.
In severe or stubborn conditions we may recommend to the patient increasing their acupuncture dosage by receiving 2-3 treatments per week for several weeks to maximize results. This would be similar to your medical doctor increasing the dosage of a medication from 10mg to 20mg or to 30 mg.