What to Expect
WHAT SHOULD YOU EXPECT FROM AN ACUPUNCTURE TREATMENT?
During your evaluation, Your practitioner will listen to you and discuss your symptoms while asking you diagnostic questions. We will then evaluate your pulse and tongue characteristics to formulate a syndrome diagnosis and your treatment plan. You will have your privacy to get ready on the treatment table where you will be provided a clinic sheet and blanket to drape with whether you choose to leave undergarments on or not is up to you. You can request a viewing of the fine hairlike thin sterile needles when we open your first package of 10. We do not reuse needles, they are placed in a sharps container when removed. Based on your diagnosis the needles will be inserted into specific places in the body called Acu-points. These areas stimulate the Qi (chee) or life force energy to balance the body's systems. The average needle retention time is 30 -55 minutes. Sometimes both sides of the body are treated so plan on 1½ hours for an initial consultation and treatment, follow-up acupuncture treatments are an hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes.
What does the Qi (Chee) movement inside your body feel like?
When you are relaxing during your needle retention, you may feel bodily sensations that the needles illicit from the energy or Qi moving within the body or feel nothing at all. Some sensations could feel like a pathway opening, a tickle, lightness, heaviness, warming, cooling, relaxation of the muscles, clarity, focus etc. After the treatment most patients feel much more relaxed or floaty, stress-less and a reduction in symptoms. Results from the treatment range from immediate relief to delayed relief depending on the condition being acute or chronic and what energetic pattern is at the root of the problem. Some results take consistent weekly treatments whereas others might need only a few treatments to get better. Because your acupuncture treatment will continue to balance the meridians for about 4 days, If your symptoms are pain and it resurfaces days later, it is usually much reduced since the first treatment and it is advised to follow your treatment plan until the meridian is totally balanced and the pain has ceased. Just like most symptoms take time to get worse, the acupuncture takes time to unravel those symptoms. Many patients choose to come in for health maintenance.
Patients should have a small snack before their treatment and please refrain from wearing perfumes or colognes as we do have chemically sensitive patients being treated in other rooms.