Acupuncture is the painless placement of very fine needles (most are thinner than a human hair!) into specific points on the body to promote healing and improve physical, biochemical (hormones and neurotransmitters), and organ functioning. The result is a change in regulation and metabolism in the body’s ecosystem. Better regulation leads to greater efficiency and energy production.

It’s About Integrating Information
Acupuncture provides your body (the cells and the nervous system) with information on how to balance your energies and restore your natural healthy functioning.

After a treatment, your energies are more balanced, which is why you feel so good. Yet you still have a habit or tendency to activate the old information of imbalance that you come into the treatment with.

Not to worry, through a series of treatments, the body accepts and embraces this new set of information that promotes and maintains healthy balance.

Immediate Pain Relief
Acupuncture treatment results in immediate pain relief and a more grounded relationship to your body. You feel more vibrantly alive! “Really?” Yes. Acupuncture works to balance the system immediately. In most cases there is significant (50-100%) reduction in pain, while you are on the treatment table. That’s the good news. However, depending on your condition, the imbalance your body had before treatment will likely attempt to come back. For many people, a series of treatments is required to have the body accept the new balance and hold onto it.

Acupuncture Style
I am very lucky to have studied with great teachers of some of the most effective acupuncture lineages from Singapore, Japan, China, and Taiwan. Most often you don’t need to remove any clothing, as most points are from the elbows to the hand and from knees to the feet. Specializing in these techniques in allows me to effectively treat a wide variety of conditions.

Diagnosis: relating your experience to underlying causes
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) diagnosis utilizes your own subjective experience of symptoms and objective observations by the doctor, which have been catalogued, correlated, and continually developing for over 3000 years.Needless to say, TCM is quite a sophisticated and refined system of medicine by now. Together, we relate your symptoms to your physiology, and uncover the underlying imbalances that alter your internal organ function.

The diagnostic system also integrates the objective techniques of Pulse Diagnosis, Meridian Palpation, and Tongue Diagnosis, which yield detailed information on the condition of your organ systems as well as your mental and emotional state (eg. how your nervous system responds to stress). Together, we (practitioner and patient) collaborate to find a course of treatment best suited for you.

Mind-Body Medicine
The Mind-Body Acupuncture approach effectively facilitates your healing by unlocking and activation your innate healing ability. This system allows your nervous system to release trauma, whether it is from stress, injury, or an emotionally traumatic event.

By reprogramming or relaxing the sympathetic mode (the stress response: fight or flight) and facilitating or activating the parasympathetic mode (relaxation, digestion, peacefulness), we help you regain choice over how you want to respond to any given situation.

Therefore, you are freed from the trap of always being stuck in the stress response, which is exhausting to the body and mind. And rather than creating the hormonal imbalances and chronic diseases that result from prolonged stress, you gain the ability to stay relaxed and maintain your sense of wellbeing in the midst of all the demands and busyness of modern life.

Additional Therapies
Additional therapies such as neuromuscular training, meridian massage, tui na, active isolated stretching, meditation, Qi Gong meridian exercise, moxabustion, heat therapy, cupping, breathing therapy, and lifestyle and nutritional coaching are used as needed.

This multi-layered approach is often what it takes to make real change in our modern world, as there are so many forces out there that prevent us from optimal health and wellness.