Acupuncture
Initial Visit
We begin by slowing down into a sacred safe space together, and heart listening to your story, asking how we can be of greatest support on your journey.
On the first visit we make a thorough assessment of your vitality and health goals, far longer than most clinics, as this deep and slow understanding sets a solid foundation for treatment.
We will have an acupuncture session on the initial visit, as well as whatever services are indicated such as herbal medicine, energy work, nutrition and lifestyle guidance, and manual therapies.
Depending on what is needed for your healing, we may offer herbs, exercises, life practices, and education. We love what we do and are devoted to helping you feel vital and in harmony.
Return Visits
Follow-up visits begin with a check in about the previous session, we explore your progress and address anything else that has come up.
During the critical initial stages, a brief period of more regular treatments are typically more effective than prolonged and infrequent treatments, such as once every week or two for the first few weeks. We continually check in to ensure there is improvement and that your health goals are best served by working together, we want to see you thrive!
Once you have attained your health goals through treatment, it is important to follow up with infrequent but routine visits to maintain your thriving vitality. Preventative efforts are essential to stay resilient in the face of new challenges, health is far more than simply the absence of symptoms.
A Basic Understanding of Acupuncture
Smooth flowing energy called qi, is central to health, and Traditional Chinese medicine uses acupuncture to restore balance, alleviate pain, and prevent disease. Qi flows through specific channels in the body which transport energy and fluids to every tissue and connect to the internal organs, they regulate our entire physiology as well as all pathological process.
Acupuncture is the insertion of fine, sterile, and disposable needles into specific locations which influence the flow of qi within the channels, and thus elicit a therapeutic response.
Health challenges, pain, and disease are a blockage of energy, an obstruction on the path of life, they are feedback that tells us that something is not right. There is either poor qi circulation, qi is flowing in an unhealthy direction, or there is insufficient qi in a particular area of the body. Acupuncture helps disperse qi stagnation, redirect qi movement, or regulate qi to restore optimal and sufficient flow throughout the body. Both internal and external forces can influence qi flow such as pathogens, diet, exercise, stress, weather and the seasons, trauma, and much more.
Acupuncture has been practiced for more than 2000 years by Chinese medicine practitioners, it’s a safe and time tested medicine. Acupuncture can help regulate all physiology and is effective in healing a wide range of conditions and diseases without side effects. Besides improving your primary concern, other immediate benefits include relaxation and stress reduction, deeper breathing, improved digestion, better sleep, a decrease in pain, and a general sense of well-being.
Any condition you would see a medical practitioner for can be treated with acupuncture, yet we are most aligned with people who experience chronic challenges, those seeking spiritual or emotional healing, and body pain that is entwined with bigger patterns. This including digestive challenges, mental conditions, energy issues, and everything between.
A Deeper Exploration of Acupuncture
Consider the acupuncture channels like various rivers flowing down the side of a mountain, they all come from the headwaters and yet each river is unique and has a clearly defined path. The rivers spread through the land bringing life through fluid circulation just as it in for us, water delivers nutrients and removes wastes. Water is the medium that allows for the process of metabolism in the Earth as well as in our bodies. The connective tissues are the river passageways and the conduit for life in our bodies, the fascia is the container that holds the extracellular environment, the place where all qi transformations at every moment are occurring.
We take in life through fluid exchange, our precious blood is where we feel the world as it comes into relationship with our cells through circulation. And the cellular metabolic wastes return via the lymphatic fluids, absolutely everything is regulated by the waters of the body. There must be free and easy movement within this environment, and these acupuncture passageways of life the are conduits for information. It all comes down to the fluids, and by changing the circulation patterns of the interstitial fluids by influencing qi with acupuncture, systemic effects follow.
Acupuncture Points, Physiology, & Health
Acupuncture points are places where information is exchanged through the circulation of qi and blood, they regulate the acupuncture channels which impact internal organ function as the channels directly stem from the organs. They irrigate surrounding tissues and connect the system together as a unified whole. They are unique locations on the surface of the body where significant movement and activity exist, they are literally turning points, places where there is great potential for changing the nature of qi and blood and thus physiology and pathology in both the channels and in the internal organs.
The points are always located at small openings within the connective tissue matrix of the body, they are not the skin, flesh, sinews, nor bones, rather they are the open spaces between these places. These spaces are not empty, but places of exchange. The points are active participants in physiology, they are not purely energetic locations, they can be felt and engaged with through acupuncture and acupressure. Acupuncture thus creates movement through the open spaces along the course of the channel to initiate a cascade of physiological change through the organs which ultimately influences systemic health. This is how acupuncture may be used to treat any and all conditions, it is far more than just for treating pain.