Many symptoms can emerge when the energy in your body is out of balance. Headaches, joint and muscle pain, menstrual and fertility issues, digestive problems, allergies and more can be treated with acupuncture. Acupuncture decreases inflammation and accelerates the body’s ability to heal itself. It also helps to release energy that may be stuck or enhance low levels of energy.

It is very important to receive acupuncture from a Licensed Acupuncturist. This ensures that your practitioner has received the highest level of training possible and is an expert in their field. They have gone through a rigorous four-year graduate program in Traditional Chinese Medicine at an accredited school, done over 2,000 hours of supervised clinical training, passed a uniform national board examination, and was successfully licensed to perform acupuncture by the Board of Registration in Medicine.

You will find others such as some Physical Therapists, Chiropractors and Massage Therapists performing acupuncture under the term “DRY NEEDLING”. We must highly caution you against this practice. Their training is extremely limited – needing only to take a one-weekend course and never obtaining a license to insert needles – compared to 2,000+ hours of training and a licensing exam required by Licensed Acupuncturists. What they are doing is inserting acupuncture needles into your body without the license required by the State of Massachusetts to do so. Proponents of “dry needling” will tell you that it is not acupuncture that they are doing simply because they are going for a specific biomedical result in muscle tissue, and are not following Traditional Chinese Medicine principles as Licensed Acupuncturists do. On the contrary, Licensed Acupuncturists are not only trained in ancient Chinese Medicine principles. A significant portion of our study is in western pathophysiology and on the biomedical affects of our practice. There are countless biomedical acupuncture studies that have been performed and Licensed Acupuncturists are trained even more comprehensively to get specific affects from their needling of soft tissue. In summary – what “dry needling” practitioners are doing is the illegal practice of acupuncture – inserting acupuncture needles into your body, with neither the medical license required or the comprehensive study deemed necessary to do so by the Board of Registration in Medicine. If you’re interested in receiving a muscular release treatment with acupuncture needles, please go to a Licensed Acupuncturist!

Your first acupuncture appointment will be scheduled for 90 minutes and will include a thorough health history evaluation and your first treatment. After your first visit, it’s often advised that you receive follow-up treatments with some regular frequency (usually once to twice per week for a few weeks). The results from acupuncture are cumulative, and it’s necessary to keep the treatments close together at first so that you improve your health condition healing condition as quickly and effectively as possible. After this initial phase of care, patients usually taper off their treatments into a maintenance phase that works for them. For some this is every other week, for some it’s once per month. Acupuncture is extremely gentle and treatments are a time of deep rest and relaxation.