Effectively boost your body’s own healing mechanisms with acupuncture and herbal remedies to combat disease, treat pain and manage mood and emotions.
Acupuncture: Treating the Source
East Asian Medicine has been around for thousands of years to prevent, diagnose, and treat disease. This ancient medicine practice involves the combination of Acupuncture, Cupping, Gua Sha, Lifestyle Advice, and Herbal Medicine to restore balance and bring about healing in patients’ lives. At the Healing House, our goal is to help guide you on your path to better health through these time-honored techniques.
Through the use of fine, sterile needles, acupuncture facilitates self-healing by activating specific points on the body to encourage the circulation of blood and vital energy within your body. Through the stimulation of specific points, a message is sent to the brain that in turn sets off a cascade of events within your physiology to actively mend and heal. Day-to-day stress, illness, fatigue, emotional occurrences, and trauma all affect the flow of energy and blood within the body. Acupuncture works to restore the natural flow of these substances, thereby boosting the body’s own healing capabilities on a physical, mental, and emotional level. A treatment acts as a call to action for the body to address the specific issues treated and helps the body utilize its available resources to correct imbalances.
After a thorough assessment, your acupuncturist will develop a course of action to help even out the workload and smooth disharmonies between different organ systems. The plan formulated will help with:
- Alleviation of symptoms
- Resolution of the root cause pertaining to your condition
- Prevention of other disharmonies that could lead to disease
- Improvement of overall circulation of blood and energy within the body
- Improved mood
- Increased overall wellbeing
- Decreased stress
How can we help?
Acupuncture can be used to effectively treat:
- Digestive complaints – IBS, Crohn’s, constipation, reflux, indigestion, etc.
- High blood pressure/low blood pressure
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Women’s health and fertility – PCOS, endometriosis, painful menses, labor prep, etc.
- Stress relief
- Kidney disease
- Fatty liver
- Pain – all over body pain, tendonitis, back, neck, shoulders, elbows, knees, etc.
- Migraines
- And much more
Meet your acupuncturists
Additional Related Services
Cupping, Gua Sha, and Moxibustion are additional techniques that your acupuncturist may use as a method of treatment. They are often utilized to treat pain but can be part of treating the common cold or flu by facilitating expectoration and venting fevers and rashes. Cosmetic Acupuncture is a special treatment to improve circulation and skin health.
CUPPING
When blood isn’t moving as well as it should, it often results in pain in the area with the decreased circulation. Cups pull the stagnant blood to the surface of the skin and allow for fresh, oxygenated blood to enter the area thereby improving circulation and dispersing pain.
Cupping is either performed by placing a stationary cup in a specific spot, or by gliding the cups over the surface of the skin. Cupping can be done using either glass fire cups, silicone suction cups, or plastic pumped cups. All methods produce the creation of suction on the skin to facilitate the movement of stagnant blood within the tissue, and opening the pores to vent inflammation.
Gua Sha
Gua Sha has a similar result, however involves the use of a specific tool to “scrape” along the direction of your tissue. The tool is repeatedly moved over the area of concern until a discoloration of the tissue appears indicating the improvement of blood flow to the area involved.
Both Cupping and Gua Sha leave behind petechiae known as Sha. This is the desired result, and is an indication of therapeutic efficacy. The discoloration on the skin varies in color from bright red indicating acute inflammation, to purple—indicating long-standing blood stasis and a more chronic condition. The Sha is not like an ordinary bruise. It will fade much more quickly, within 1-3 days, and does not hurt. In fact, Cupping and Gua Sha often result in immediate and profound improvement. Patients often request this modality once they’ve experienced how quickly and effectively it resolves their discomfort.
Moxibustion
Moxibustion is a form of heat therapy in which dried plant materials called “moxa” are burned on or very near the surface of the skin. The intention is to warm and invigorate the flow of Qi in the body and dispel certain pathogenic influences. Moxa is usually made from the dried leafy material of Chinese mugwort, but it can be made of other substances as well.
The smoldering moxa stick is held over specific areas, often, though not always, corresponding to certain acupuncture points. The glowing end of the moxa stick is held about an inch or two above the surface of the skin until the area reddens and becomes suffused with warmth.
Cosmetic Acupuncture
Cosmetic acupuncture is an extension of traditional acupuncture. It can naturally help make the skin look younger, smoother, and all-around healthier. And unlike injection procedures, facial acupuncture addresses not only signs of aging, but also the skin’s overall health.
On the face, the acupuncturist will insert many tiny and painless needles. These punctures stimulate your lymphatic and circulatory systems, which work together to deliver nutrients and oxygen to your skin cells, nourishing the skin from the inside out. This helps even out your complexion and promotes your skin’s glow. The positive microtraumas also stimulate the production of collagen. This helps improve elasticity, minimizing fine lines and wrinkles.
Diagnostic Tools
We have several diagnostic methods that we employ in order to determine your current condition.
Palpation/Hara Diagnosis
Your acupuncture physician may palpate your channels, specific points on your limbs, trunk, or back. This is done to determine the channel or meridian that is most affected by your current condition. Channel Palpation is a technique by which the practitioner feels for tissue anomalies within the area. They are assessing for things like nodules, bumps, dryness, stickiness, and hardness. The findings offer helpful diagnostic information that is used by your practitioner in creating a treatment plan.
Your practitioner may examine your “Hara” (abdomen and back). On the front, this is done by feeling the area around and slightly underneath your rib cage on both sides, and also around and below your navel. On the back, practitioners gently press between vertebrae around the shoulder blades, and other areas along the paraspinal muscles. These areas correspond to specific organ systems and again, relay important information to your acupuncture physician.
Shen-Hammer Pulse Diagnosis
All Healing House acupuncturists are trained in the world-renowned Shen-Hammer Pulse System. This system has been passed down over fifteen generations and is a profound diagnostic tool. Your physician will feel your radial pulse in up to as many as 28 different positions located on either wrist. They are feeling for the width, pliability, volume, rate, and general movement of your pulse. This tool sheds light on how your body is functioning as a whole, as well as providing the state of affairs and relative health of each individual organ, and how it is contributing to the body as a whole. Just like any workplace, some systems are working harder than others, this information can be determined through the pulse.
Tongue Diagnosis
Your practitioner will want to look at your tongue, strange as that may seem to some. The tongue is the only external way to physically see what’s going on inside your body. Your practitioner will look at the size, shape, color, and coat of your tongue, as well as any marking that may be present. Each of these characteristics have specific diagnostic indications and lead your practitioner in a particular direction to treat your condition.
Acupuncture Pricing
* Prices subject to change
| Initial Intake | $130 |
| Follow-Up | $90 |
| Veteran/Senior/Student Follow-Up | $80 |
| Pediatric Initial Intake | $125 |
| Pediatric Follow-Up | $65 |
| Acupuncture for Relaxation | $90 |
| 10 Session Package | $825 |
| 5 Session Package | $425 |
| Community Acupuncture | $60 Initial/$35 - $50 Sliding scale Follow up |
