Spring Greeting from Aimee
I am so excited that spring is here! The daffodils are up, the flox is flowering, and we have more day light hours every day. I am starting back in on my gardens planting spring greens, herbs, and flowers.
It has been a challenging cold and dark past few months especially post Helene. I think we are all excited to be coming into some sunnier days and warmer weather.
We hope you all are coming out of the winter feeling well rested and ready to thrive. We are here to help if you need.
For this March newsletter, I decided to answer some frequently asked questions. We often get asked about these things so I hope these are helpful responses. These are more of these on our FAQ page.
• FAQ •
If a point is more sensitive when it gets needled, what does that mean?
When a certain point is more sensitive than others during an acupuncture session that can mean a lot of different things. It can mean there is stagnation in that point that needs to be moved. It can mean that we have found a point that correlates to an area of pain such as when we palpate around the ankles looking for tender spots to relieve neck pain. Certain points are also just inherently more sensitive such as points on the hands or feet where there are many nerve endings. It is important to note that sensitivity does not mean ‘hurt’. Sensations such as dull, achy, heavy, light, tingling and many more are all good indications that the point is activated.
How many treatments till resolve?
Acute conditions take just a few treatments to resolve and chronic conditions take more. If you present with acute back pain, we can typically take care of this in 1-3 treatments. If you have a headache or menstrual cramps, you should expect to walk out of our treatment room feeling a great deal of relief if not completely better.
I have occasionally been able to resolve a chronic issue for a patient with one acupuncture treatment but those cases are rare although a welcome occurrence.
Chronic conditions take longer to resolve and depend on how long you have had this issue, how severe it is, and what the issue is. If an issue is very long standing or severe you can expect it to require several treatments to resolve. This may require treatments once or twice a week for a few months and then a taper to once a week then bi monthly and then just occasional treatments when the issue flares back up. If the issue is something you were born with then we probably won’t be able to resolve the issue completely but get it to a best-case scenario. This may require treatments once a week on an ongoing basis. That goes the same for diagnosed diseases such as diabetes, MS , Parkinson’s etc. We cannot cure those conditions completely but we can minimize their effect and progression through regular treatments. Feel free to ask your practitioner what their recommendation and prognosis is for your particular health concern.
How often should I come in?
We like to determine this by a pain scale. If the pain is less than 5/10 on a pain scale, then you can probably expect us to recommend you come in once a week. If the pain is 5/10 or more than expect us to recommend twice a week. If your pain is very severe such as 8/10 or more than we will probably recommend you come in 3 or more times a week. Of course, you always get to decide how often you can afford to come get treatments and how aggressively you want to treat an issue. We make recommendations based off our experience and to help our patients get better in the quickest way.
Why don’t you put them in my back?
We practice mainly distal acupuncture. There are 2 styles of acupuncture, local and distal. Local acupuncture means that needles will be placed into the area that is hurting. Distal acupuncture means that needles with be placed in distal locations (and not right into where it hurts). Distal acupuncture is a highly effective and widely practiced style of acupuncture. We practice like this because of how well it works and also how easily we can address any pain from a recliner chair and maintain our affordable rates. I wrote a whole newsletter on this titled Local vs Distal Acupuncture which you can find on the Health topics page of our website peoplesacupuntureavl.com.
What should I do after my treatment? Can I get a massage? Go workout?
There is no specific rule for how to go about your day after an acupuncture treatment. The most important rule to follow is to listen to your body. If you feel tired, rest. If emotions come up, let them flow. Getting something like a massage is fine but also you may want to consider scheduling this on another day to give your body time to deal with just one treatment at a time.
Do you treat kids?
We do! Kids tend to be very responsive when it comes to acupuncture and treatments are extremely effective for them. Kids typically will stay for a shorter treatment (less than the 45 mins or more adults usually stay.) Some kids do stay the full 45 or even longer and that’s fine too. A parent or guardian is required to accompany them and we only treat consenting children. No kicking and screaming kids who are being forced into it. We are happy to schedule you along with your kid at the same time so that you can get treatments together.
Do you treat hearing or vision loss?
Things like hearing and vision loss are a bit more complicated to treat. From a Chinese medicine perspective these conditions are the result of kidney Qi deficiency, a natural decline that happens as we age. We are all born with our individual full load of kidney qi. This qi slowly declines as we age and as a result, we experience loss of vision and hearing as well as other age-related issues. Although there are things we can do to improve these conditions we find that age-related hearing and vision loss are not conditions we can greatly impact. If, however, the hearing loss is from something like sinus congestion or an injury to the ear drum we can effectively treat that. If the vision loss is from an eye injury, or some other non-age-related issue, than acupuncture can be effective to treat this as well.
