Private Acupuncture Care
Acupuncture provides safe, effective, gentle relief from chronic pain, stress, fatigue, digestive disorders, mental/emotional distress, infertility, and a host of other ailments. Side effects include better sleep, elevated mood, and increased energy. Truly natural, holistic healing in a calm and relaxing environment.
Your private acupuncture treatment may include any of the following, with a personalized treatment plan specifically for you:
A One-on-One Health Evaluation with your Practitioner
Having ample time to discuss your concerns with your provider is something that a lot of modern health care appointments lack. Since acupuncture is a form of holistic medicine – where all facets of a person are considered equally important in determining the best treatment plan – we spend plenty of time listening to your health concerns, reviewing your health history, and getting to know you personally. You will have the opportunity to build a relationship with your provider that is based on trust, understanding, and great results. The most time is spent with you in your initial appointment, where we want to build a complete picture to be able to craft your treatments to be exactly what you need.
Diagnosis using the pulse, tongue, and eye
Chinese medicine utilizes several diagnostic techniques to put together your differential diagnosis. In addition to your reported symptoms and medical history, your practitioner will also feel your pulses. There are 6 Chinese pulses at each wrist, for a total of 12. The pulses along with features of the tongue and eye give the practitioner information about the health of the organ systems of the body. Chinese medicine is holographic, meaning that the whole is represented in the part; e.g., all the major organ systems are represented on the body of the tongue.
The insertion of single-use disposable acupuncture needles
All needles used at the clinic are surgical stainless steel, sterile, and disposable – used on one point on the body and then discarded. Multiple needles may be inserted into several locations on the body, and anywhere from 1-15 needles may be used in a single session. Needles are usually retained in the body for 5-45 minutes, depending on the treatment.
Acupuncture needles are much thinner and smaller than hypodermic needles. Only about a hair’s width, often there is no sensation at all when inserting one. Once inserted, there should be no pain or discomfort, and most patients sleep or just rest comfortably for the duration of their treatment.
The placement of the needles can be anywhere on the body – the head, ears, back, torso, arms, and legs are most common. You do not need to fully undress for your treatments. Often, loose clothing that can simply be moved aside will suffice. If your practitioner needs to access an area covered by clothing, we offer gowns/robes to change into. You are, of course, welcome to decline the placement of needles on any part of your body to which you do not consent.
Electro-Stim (ESTIM) Acupuncture
ESTIM is a method of acupuncture that includes running a current through the needles to further stimulate the acupoints. More in-depth information on this type of treatment can be found here.
Moxibustion therapy
Made from mugwort herb, small cones or sticks are burned on or near acupuncture points on the body, producing a pleasant feeling of warmth. The burned portion of a moxa cone or stick does not touch or burn skin.
Moxa is commonly used when treating pain, digestive upset, fatigue, and many other conditions. It can even be used to encourage a baby in breech presentation to turn prior to labor!
Patients often request moxa therapy because of its gentle, nurturing warmth and interesting aroma when burned. It can often produce instant relief when used to treat stubborn, fixed pain.
Moxibustion is only available in our Private Acupuncture Clinic, and is not available in the Community Acupuncture Clinic.
Recommendations for Chinese Herbs, (western) vitamins/supplements
Chinese herbs can be used effectively to treat both chronic and acute illness. Your practitioner may discuss herbal recommendations with you as part of your individualized treatment strategy. Herbs can support your treatment and lengthen the amount of time you experience relief from your symptoms.
Similarly, we offer a selection of high quality vitamins and supplements for sale at the clinic. All products sold are only available via health care providers and are carefully and ongoingly scrutinized by the clinic practitioners to be of exceptional quality.
Chinese Nutritional Therapy
The energetics of food is a rich and particularly useful topic. The ancient Chinese applied the energetic patterns they observed in nature to all beings – animal, vegetable, and mineral. Every food has an energetic action in the body and an affinity for certain organ systems; thus, the diet we eat can be used as medicine! For example, in Chinese medicine, the Liver has an affinity for sour foods. These foods are recommended to support the functioning of the organ. Remarkably, modern science is making these same connections that the Chinese made thousands of years ago. A 2002 study showed that when applied to human liver cancer cells in a petri dish, extracts of cranberry and lemon had the highest anti-proliferation effect by far when compared to a host of other fruits!
Your practitioner may make dietary suggestions that will help to support your treatment goals. Chinese nutritional therapy involves the inclusion (and possibly avoidance) of certain readily-available foods as a way to treat internal conditions. This is another avenue for creating a holistic approach to wellness. Such suggestions will be food items you can find at a regular grocer or local health food store, and recipes are also provided when requested.
Non-Needle Therapies
There are a variety of adjunct therapies in Chinese Medicine that can enhance the effect of an acupuncture treatment.
Cupping and Gua Sha are manual therapies that can be used for tight/painful muscles, cough and respiratory illness recovery, and more. Your practitioner may include a short course of these therapies during your acupuncture treatment. If a longer course is needed, you may be advised to book a different type of treatment that can utilize these therapies more extensively. Read more about Cupping and Gua sha on our Non-Needle Therapies page.
More non-needle therapies are coming soon!
Start Your Journey to Healing and Rejuvenation
“From the moment you walk in the door, the staff is very friendly and make you feel like you are part of the family. I started going to acupuncture due to inflammation from arthritis and I continue to go because I feel better after each treatment. You will not be disappointed!”
Frequently Asked Questions
Private Acupuncture
Do acupuncture needles hurt?
This is by far the most frequently asked question! It’s understandable, given the experience most of us have had with shots, but acupuncture needles are nothing like hypodermic needles. They are very thin, just a few hairs width, and they are not hollow like hypodermic needles. They are designed to slide through tissue without cutting, so there is usually very little pain during insertion. Only single use, disposable, sterile acupuncture needles are used in our practice. Many patients fall asleep with the needles inserted.
What happens during an Acupuncture treatment?
Check out a description of what your acupuncture treatment appointment may contain above, and see our Things to Know page
Can acupuncture treat _____ ?
As holistic medicine is designed to treat the wholeness of a person, each facet of their being be it body, mind, or spirit, the answer to this question is almost always “Yes”. There are some exceptions and for advice on a specific medical condition, please contact us. Also, check out a list of issues commonly treated with acupuncture.
How does acupuncture work?
The mechanism of action for acupuncture remains largely unknown. It is possible that this is due to multiple mechanisms at play. It has been clearly demonstrated time and again that stimulating certain points on the body via insertion of an acupuncture needle has a physiological effect. Sometimes this effect is the release of neurotransmitters, which may cause the patient to report feeling happy, calm, balanced, or peaceful. Other times the effect is immediate and dramatic pain relief. Other effects include support of the body systems including the lymphatic, endocrine, respiratory, major organ, digestive, and reproductive systems.
What are acupuncture points?
The ancient Chinese believed that a vital life force or energy, called “Qi”, flowed through channels or meridians in the body. At certain places Qi comes close to the surface, where it can most easily be influenced. These are the acupuncture points. The Chinese character for the word Qi depicts a pot of rice boiling on a stove , steam from the pot causing the lid to rise and fall. This is a metaphor for transformation and movement. The ancient Chinese believed that movement/change is the natural state of all things. Thus, this system of energy channels and points was developed to give the practitioner access to areas of “stuckness”, and the ability to reintroduce movement by stimulating specific points along the channels. It is the model that was developed and used in ancient China to organize, categorize, and explain the effects noted when testing the points empirically. Even in modern day, it remains an elegant metaphor for the state of health in the individual.
Why is acupuncture considered ‘holistic’ medicine?
A holistic approach encompasses the idea that nothing happens in a vacuum. Your body, any symptoms you are experiencing, your emotional state, and your psychological state are all parts of a greater whole. Where one area is affected, all are affected to varying degrees. Acupuncture treatment is designed to treat the whole person, to move everything forward at once. In this way, treatments are designed to target the source of the issue, in addition to the symptoms.
How do you know which acupuncture points to treat?
A comprehensive assessment, called a “Traditional Diagnosis,” is done at your initial visit. This includes a health history, pulse diagnosis, and tongue diagnosis among other diagnostic tools. A treatment plan is devised based on this diagnosis. Specific points are selected in accordance with the treatment plan.
How many treatments will I need?
The number of treatments needed varies from individual to individual. The severity of the imbalance, how long it has been going on, the constitution of the patient and any medications being used are just a few of the variables involved. Most of the time weekly treatments are needed for several weeks to begin to establish balance. Frequency of treatment is then tailored to the individual needs of the patient. The Chinese medicine rule of thumb is that one month of treatment will be needed for every year the condition has been in place.
The focus of every treatment strategy is always to get the body working better than it was before. Thus, regular treatment in conjunction with any appropriate and congruent lifestyle changes should result in the need for less and less treatment as time goes on. Ideally, the patient gets to the point where they are maintaining a satisfactory state of health on their own, and only need seasonal “tune-up” treatments during the year.
Which Practitioner should I see?
One of the great things about our group practice is that we’ve got a great team of practitioners, each with their own strengths, specialties, and personalities. It’s important to us that every patient feels comfortable with whomever their practitioner is. For this reason, you are always welcome to choose your practitioner, or change at any time. We’re all busy here, and foster a collaborative work environment, so there’s no competition. We all want you to feel better and find the practitioner that is the best match for accomplishing that! We will also do our best to match you with a practitioner that we feel will best suit your individual needs when appropriate.
We do suggest that you choose one practitioner to be your “primary” – the person who follow the thread of your care the most closely. However, it is always preferable that you complete your treatment plan and not skip treatments, for the sake of building some healing momentum. So if scheduling issues occasionally prevent you from seeing your primary practitioner, we welcome you to schedule with another practitioner to fill in those holes so you aren’t missing your treatments. It’s always helpful to have multiple eyes on the problem, and we work together behind the scenes to determine the best care we can for your individual condition.
We are confident that you’ll be in good hands no matter who you choose. Patients often remark that they loved seeing another practitioner when they had an opportunity to do so. There are so many different ways to approach treatment, it can be fun to see and experience some variety to determine what will work best for you.
You can read about our practitioners by looking here.
My symptoms got worse after the treatment, but now I feel great. What is going on?
You may have experienced a healing reaction (see below). Communicate with your practitioner for guidance on what this means.
What is a Healing Reaction?
It seems natural to assume that if a symptom is healing, it will slowly get better and better until it’s gone. However, the path to healing is not commonly this linear. More likely, there will be ups and downs, improvements and setbacks. Slowly the ups become more frequent and long-lived, and the downs become fewer and further between.
Sometimes as part of the healing journey, you may experience a temporary worsening of your symptoms after an acupuncture treatment. This worsening usually happens within 24 hours of the treatment; less often, it can happen up to 48 hours after the treatment. This timing, combined with a marked improvement afterwards, points towards what is known as a “healing reaction” or “healing crisis”. Another way to think of it is an intense healing event:
“An intense healing event is a normal part of an accelerated healing process. It occurs when the body gathers enough strength to deal with the cleansing and regeneration needed to achieve an improved condition of health.” – David Saterlee
This is a good sign that the treatment you received is working to correct the underlying imbalance that is creating the symptoms. It indicates that the message that the treatment delivered hit its target. You should feel much better once the reaction subsides than you did prior to the treatment.
Healing reactions never create new symptoms – if you experience a new symptom immediately following a treatment, this is not a healing reaction. Communicate with your practitioner anytime symptoms worsen after treatment, and he or she will guide you in understanding the context of what may be happening.
Is acupuncture treatment safe during pregnancy?
Yes! Acupuncture is commonly used with pregnant women for aches and pains, nausea and morning sickness, acid reflux, fatigue, cravings, and many other pregnancy-related symptoms. Acupuncture can be used at the end of pregnancy to prepare the body for labor, start a stalled labor, and even help a baby in breech position turn on his or her own.
Can children receive acupuncture?
Yes, absolutely. Children tend to respond very well to acupuncture treatment and quicker than adults, thus they rarely need a lot of treatment. There is no minimum age for receiving acupuncture. In cases of very young children, needles may or may not be needed, depending on the condition. Moxa and acupressure are often time sufficient treatment. See what an acupuncture treatment may include for more information on treating children.
Does my insurance cover acupuncture?
Many health insurance plans do cover acupuncture. As plans vary widely, you should check with your company to see what your specific policy covers. Our office accepts most major insurance carriers in Maryland and we can check benefits for you and submit claims on your behalf. For other insurance providers, we can provide you with an itemized receipt with proper insurance coding that you can submit for reimbursement, apply to a health savings or flexible spending account, or use for tax deduction purposes.
Get up to date details on insurance here »