Acupuncture benefits & Treatments
How can acupuncture help?
A good starting point is the World Health Organisation’s list of conditions that it recommends acupuncture for. There is a list on the BAcC’s website with a link to the download pdf here.
This is a symptom-based list which is a very Western perspective. As an acupuncturist, David is looking beneath this for the root cause of these symptoms and probably for 90% of these conditions this comes down to a common factor. Stress. Whether it is physical, mental or emotional, stress impacts on the balanced flow of Qi and ill heath is likely to eventually arise.
What to expect with acupuncture treatment
The first session is the initial consultation/first treatment and is a longer appointment (90mins to 2 hours) than the follow ups (45-60mins)
There are basically 3 sections to the first session.
1: David will have a conversation with you to get a detailed picture of what it is you are looking for help with. He takes a medical history similar to a Western Doctor but there is a difference. He is working to diagnose which meridians/elements are in most need of support as appropriate acupuncture treatment to address this is how your system moves back in balance and better health. You give lots of clues as you go through your symptom history and lifestyle information. David also looks at diet, sleep cycle, energy levels, stresses and a wealth of other information. It is an in-depth diagnosis yet conducted in an easy comfortable way.
2: Then there is a physical examination as your body provides many clues too. If anything in particular is hurting, David will examine this in detail in order to best be able to address your physical discomfort. There is also a richness of constitutional information to be gathered. David will physically assess the condition of your meridian network on your arms and legs and associated areas on your abdomen with a light palpation. He will take your blood pressure in the normal way and will pay particular attention to a highly specialised method of taking your pulses in both wrists to assess the quality and relative quantity of Qi circulating in your meridian network. At all times you are encouraged to ask questions if you would like to know more about what is going on.
3: Finally you will move onto the treatment stage of this first appointment. As long as everything is adding up David will give you a full treatment to get things moving.
Acupuncture benefits for stress relief
Stress takes many forms in our lives from working too long in jobs we might not love, relationship problems, past or present traumatic life events, or dealing with a health related issue to name but a few. And stress builds up in our system compounding the problems. For instance David sees a lot of women with fertility difficulties that as their clock ticks on and friends are having babies around them get increasingly more stressed about the situation and guess what? Those building stresses become a significant part of their problem too.
So as well as improvements in symptoms, one of the common outcomes of acupuncture is in helping you to deal with the stresses in your lives. You may not be able to easily change some of the circumstances but with support you can engage with them in a less stressy way.
This is seen when people often report a noticeable and unexpected increase in well-being as they go through acupuncture treatments.
Highly individualised treatment plans
So let’s talk about the thing that can put some people off having acupuncture.. Needles
Most people’s experience of needles in a healthcare environment are with hypodermic syringes used in blood tests (drawing stuff out) or injections (putting stuff in). These are large, hollow, very stiff needles with an ‘ouch’ factor.. acupuncture needles are nothing like this! They are very fine, high quality, sterile, single use needles. With the advanced training David has undertaken in Japanese acupuncture, he uses some of the thinnest needles available with the lightest of shallow insertion which is then usually removed after a second or two, all to minimise any transient discomfort the person may fleetingly feel. He has worked hard to perfect this super-gentle needle technique and has never had anyone give up on treatment because it hurts too much. So don’t worry.
Between the initial session and the next David will be working on a highly individualised treatment plan for you covering the next few sessions. Realistically it is unlikely that all your problems will be solved in a single session and generally people require a course of treatment to turn things around. Usually these problems have been some time in developing so don’t trust anyone who promises a seemingly magical answer. David will let you know in this first session roughly how many appointments to expect and it is usual to follow up with 4 or 5 appointments spaced approximately weekly. At this point there will be a rain check with David to reflect on how the treatments are going so far and is unusual for people not to be noticing tangible positive changes by now.
To find out more or book an appointment
give David a call on 01273 307001
To find out more or book an appointment give David a call on 01273 307001