Understanding Acupuncture and the Steps of Care:

Relieve, Correct & Maintain!

 

There are many flavors of Chinese Medicine, and deciding on a treatment is a collaboration between the patient and the practitioner.  Feeling healthy goes beyond the absence of acute or chronic illness.  Often, we don’t acknowledge our heath until it is compromised… and only then do we seek ways to regain it.  Acupuncture and Chinese medicine can help you along the path toward optimal health and vitality:  physically, emotionally and spiritually. 

 

Following are the steps of care that can lead you toward a balanced, healthy and holistic lifestyle:

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Most patients begin acupuncture treatment to receive quick relief from pain, discomfort and other symptoms.  This is RELIEF CARE. This type of care allows you to feel better faster.  Each visit builds on previous visits, paving the way toward eliminating your initial problems and complaints. 

 

Frequent visits over the next few weeks or months may be needed to further reduce your symptoms.  Your condition, age, lifestyle and the quality and quantity of your energy, called Qi, are all factors in your treatment frequency.  After relief care you will notice that your aches or pains have been dramatically reduced or eliminated.

 

This next phase is CORRECTIVE CARE.  Signs and symptoms have been reduced, and visits are less frequent.  This phase maintains and supports the changes you have achieved and provides a foundation for deeper healing. This is also the time when underlying problems can be addressed.

 

Even though you may not be experiencing symptoms, it is important to continue to strengthen, build and support your body.  Stopping care now could disrupt the progress you have already achieved, and even simple activities could cause a relapse.

 

MAINTENANCE AND WELLNESS CARE is the final phase.  This type of care preserves all the progress you have made.  Visits may be monthly, every other month or seasonal.  Much the same way you keep a car running smoothly with regular oil changes and tune-ups, periodic visits to your acupuncturist can keep you running smoothly.  These preventative maintenance tune-ups further strengthen your body’s resistance, keeping you healthy, balanced and potentially free from illness.  Little problems may be caught before they become major concerns.  Just as periodic checkups with your dentist can help detect tooth decay before it becomes painful and leads to serious problems, regular acupuncture checkups can help identify, rebalance, and correct little problems before they become bigger ones.

 

Wellness care is the root of healing.  In ancient times, an acupuncturist was only compensated as long as patients remained healthy.  If they became ill, it was the doctor’s duty to get them well again without compensation.

 

An acupuncture lifestyle, combined with regular exercise, a healthy diet and other good habits, can keep you looking, feeling and performing at your best.  Treatments may be combined with herbs, cupping, moxibustion, meditation, massage, Qi Gong or light exercise.  These techniques are added to further relieve symptoms, speed recovery time and pave the way toward health, vitality and longevity.

 

It is difficult to judge the health and integrity of your body’s energy (Qi) simply by whether you are experiencing pain or other symptoms.  Qi imbalances can exist in the body for years without showing any symptoms… and for this reason, regular acupuncture evaluations and treatments are encouraged.

 

 © 2012 Acupuncture Media Works