FAQs

Welcome!

Step 1: Booking. Click the book now button in the top right to be taken to my booking page, where you’ll see the openings that I have in the near future. You can choose whenever is most convenient. You can pay for your treatment online and in advance so that the day of you only have to bring yourself.

An e-mail confirmation will bring you forms to fill at your leisure before your appointment. This allows a relaxing, paper-work free experience when you arrive at the clinic.

You’ll receive two reminders, one email the day before your appointment and one text a couple hours before.

Step 2: Day of. Please come wearing comfortable, loose-fitting clothing, or bring something to change into. Try to have something to eat before you come, acupuncture affects metabolic processes so it’s good to have some extra fuel to burn just in case. Try to be hydrated but don’t chug water right before getting on the table. There are restrooms available, but it’s better to go before or after rather than in the middle of your treatment.

We’ll ask what’s brought you into the clinic and what you’ve tried in the past for it. We’ll talk about your goals and what we can help with. We’ll answer any questions you might have. And then we’ll get you a treatment.

Treatment typically consists of acupuncture and body work, and typically there are some things you can do at home that should help your progress along. We want to empower you with the knowledge that you need to improve your own health, and we find that a combination of treatment and self-care is the best.

Step 3: After-care. After you get a treatment, take care of yourself. Drink some water, get in some light exercise, go to bed when you’re tired. Enjoy the effects and practice your self-care.

Less than you might expect. Most patients report not feeling the needles at all. We use very thin needles, guide tubes that allow easy insertion, and distraction techniques to draw the nervous system away from the point of insertion. Most of the nerve endings are near the skin, which we bypass painlessly in most cases.

However, our style of needling is more targeted than some other acupuncturists. We affect specific structures under the skin and in order to reach those, we manipulate the needle. The most common feeling is a dull ache, sometimes moving around the body. There might be a muscle twitch which is more surprising than painful. Sometimes the body shifts around the needle which causes discomfort, in which case, please tell the practitioner. But part of the process is delineating between bodily sensations of a stabbing, misplaced needle, and the normal sensations of the pull of fascia from structure to structure, for example.

Sometimes yes, it hurts. But those are the exceptions and many patients again don’t feel the needles at all. If you’ve had a shot from the doctor’s office for an injection, this is entirely different. However, let your acupuncturist know if you’ve had bad experiences with needles or are nervous so we can take it slow, at your pace of comfort.

While receiving a treatment, we generally want you to be as relaxed as possible. Sometimes we’ll treat one part of the body or another, and you are free to move the non-needled areas however you like. When we leave needles in some particular area, moving the muscles in that area might cause some discomfort, depending on position and movement. But we find that moving slowly and in small ranges is generally fine. And if you move in a way that makes a needle uncomfortable, you will always be able to let us know so we can adjust or remove the needle. But some patients move around entirely without feeling the needles, so everyone is different 

We find that the best possible care can be provided through directly accepting payment from our patients themselves. If you have insurance that you would like to use, we can provide you with an itemized receipt of services along with the ICD-10 and CPT billing codes, known as a superbill, which you may forward to your insurance company for direct reimbursement.

If you prefer to see a clinic that is contracted with your insurance company directly, there are many other good local options for providers.

We can help you with pain anywhere in the body including lower back, shoulder, knee, and neck pain, as well as stomach problems, gynecological ailments, mental-emotional regulation, and sleep.