What to Expect During Your Initial Appointment?

What To Expect During Your Initial Appointment? 

An initial acupuncture appointment is 90 minutes and during this time we go in depth discussing your health concerns. Questions are asked from a Chinese medicine viewpoint which takes into account different aspects of your health than Western medicine. Chinese medicine focuses on energetic body systems and the connections between those systems which can help find the root cause of your health concerns. A lot of patients say that this approach is way more in-depth than anything they have experienced before! For the first appointment please bring in a current medication/supplement list, allergy list and applicable labs and imaging reports.

Putting the pieces together and taking all aspects of you into account is what Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) thrives at. Within Western healthcare we tend to compartmentalize each system, keeping them separate from one another. TCM looks at the relationships between body systems, between you and your environment and between you and your life experiences. A tongue and pulse diagnosis is also done as well as a hands on assessment if there is a physical area of pain. All this is then blended together to give you a complete and holistic treatment.

 The assessment portion of the initial appointment takes approximately 45 minutes and the second half is spent in treatment where you will have your needs addressed with acupuncture. At the end of the initial appointment, we discuss a treatment plan going forward. This treatment plan can include frequency of appointments, lifestyle suggestions and alternate modalities which can be incorporated such as cupping and gua sha.

The following business day you will receive an initial follow up email to see how you have responded to your treatment and if you have any further questions. Open communication, support and empowering you to have an active role in your health are fundamental in my approach to care.

Have a few questions before booking in? Schedule a free meet and greet to have your questions answered.

If you are ready to get started on your acupuncture journey with Andrea then schedule your appointment here.