What to Expect
Your first visit will begin with an in depth assessment of your condition and
an initial treatment. The intake and treatment may take up to 1 1/2 hours.
During the assessment I may ask you about some things that you might not
think are connected to your chief complaint, for example, your emotions,
sleeping patterns, and eating habits. Chinese medicine considers the whole
person, not just one isolated symptom. When put together, the myriad of symptoms
and signs you are experiencing reveal patterns of disharmony. Although treatment
will focus on your chief complaint, your whole being must be considered in order
to develop the most appropriate course. Chinese medicine is unique in that it
appreciates that illnesses may be identical, but the persons suffering from them
are individuals.
 Pulse and Tongue Diagnosis
As part of your intake, viewing your tongue and feeling your pulse can
provide a Chinese medical practitioner with a great deal of information about
your body to help guide the treatment.
Treatment
My needling technique is very gentle, and my clients usually do not feel
anything more than sense of a small "mosquito bite", which disappears
in moments. Although people experience different levels of sensitivity, I work
very closely with you to make sure your experience is comfortable and positive.
My approach is always to use the fewest needles possible to achieve
therapeutic results. With acupuncture, more needles does not always mean better
results, but accurate selection of specific acupuncture points and placement are
really the keys giving an excellent treatment.
Needles are typically retained for about 20 minutes. I often play soothing
music to help you relax during this time. Many people even fall asleep.
Results of Treatment
Your relief may be immediate, delayed for a few hours or even develop after 1
to 3 days. The relief may last for a few hours on the first visit and then last
longer with each successive treatment. OR, relief may last from the first
treatment until your next visit. It is important to recognize that we are all
individuals. Individual response to treatment varies.
Side Effects
Side effects are rare but may include the following symptoms: light-headed
feeling, dizziness, sleepiness, euphoria, nausea, slight bruising, residual
muscle aching. Any of these should last only a very short time. It is helpful to
take a short nap after acupuncture.
Flare-up
On rare occasions one's original symptoms may briefly get worse or 'flare-up'
after a treatment. A flare-up typically occurs later on the day of your
treatment and only for an hour or so and then improvement and relief follow. If
the flare-up lasts longer than this, please call me and let me know. In the long
run, acupuncture does not make symptoms worse.
In some conditions, the body must fully expel a pathogen in order for healing
to occur. For example, if you have a cold, acupuncture will not get rid of the
cold, but can help accelerate the cold cycle so your body gets healthy sooner.
If you are fatigued and starting to get a cold, acupuncture may help your body
ward it off. There are also some terrific herbal formulas that can help.
In cases of chronic pain, your original pain may improve and then unmask
other less obvious pain in the surrounding area. Please report what happened
when you return so I can modify your treatment accordingly. I will also be
interested in any change in your use of pain-killer medications as a result of
treatment. Please be advised that changes in prescription medication require
prior approval and strict monitoring by your family physician.
Course of Treatment
As part of your first visit, I will discuss with you a proposed course of
treatment. Since individuals vary, it is difficult to state definitively at the
time of your first visit how many treatments will be required. In general, acute
conditions of recent onset may only require 2 or 3 treatments. Chronic
conditions usually require more treatments to achieve sustained results. With
chronic conditions I usually recommend an initial course of 3-5 treatments in
order to make a better assessment of whether or not acupuncture will help the
condition. Most people begin to experience results within the first two
treatments. If there has been no response to the acupuncture after 4 - 6
treatments, acupuncture will likely not work and other approaches should be
considered.
The ideal approach to illness is to begin treatment as soon as possible. The
sooner you seek help, the easier it is to treat. For longstanding illnesses,
weekly treatments may be required for several months in order to have a curative
effect.
Once you initiate a healing process, it is important to follow through on
treatments. The more consistent you are, the better the likelihood of results.
The effects of acupuncture tend to be cumulative. After you are feeling better,
I will likely recommend an additional few treatments. In Chinese medicine, this
is referred to as "solidifying the constitution." The goal is to
further strengthen your body to prevent recurrence of the illness. Once they are
feeling better, many people find it difficult to follow through with even just a
couple treatments. Healing requires a lot of energy. Your body is most
vulnerable following recovery from illness because it has expended much of its
energy and internal resources in order to get better. It is therefore important
to have a few treatments in order to prevent repeated or new illness. In
general, when an illness recurs it is often more difficult to treat.
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