What to Expect at an Acupuncture Appointment
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Interview – First, your acupuncture specialist will ask you questions about your medical history, how you are currently feeling and what is happening in your life. It is important not to leave out information or symptoms because they are not related to the reason for your visit. Seemingly unrelated symptoms may actually make perfect sense based on the energetic principles of Chinese medicine.
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Examination – Your acupuncturist may examine your eyes and ask you to stick out your tongue. He can learn much about your current state of health by observing the color and texture of your skin, eyes and tongue. Next, he will take your pulses. This is not the heart rate pulse that is taken in a Western medical office, although Chinese medical pulses are also taken on your wrists. These pulses indicate how your energetic channels are functioning.
- Treatment – Based on the interview and examination, a group of acupuncture points will be selected for your treatment. These points are chosen specifically for you, based on their individual effect and their ability to work harmoniously with the other points chosen. Acupuncture is safe and often painless. The needles used are made from extremely fine gauge, flexible surgical stainless steel. (Five acupuncture needles fit inside the hole of a hypodermic needle.) And unlike hypodermic needles that cut the skin, acupuncture needles slide through the skin without cutting. Only sterile, one-time-use needles are used.
Each treatment is aimed at relieving your existing condition as well as addressing the root causes that led you to your current state. Treatment progresses as you progress and changes based on your individual response to the treatment. By treating disease at its origin, Chinese medicine aims to restore health by working with the body in the direction it naturally wants to go… toward a healthy state of being.
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Sources:
Marshall, S., & Walker, B. An Introduction to Chinese Medicine. Sugar Grove, NC: Jung Tao School of Classical Chinese Medicine.
Personal Interview with Acupuncturist Richard W. Morgan, LAc, LMT, CNT. December 10, 2007.
© Karen Lee Richards, 2008
Last updated: 6/22/08
