What to Expect?
Your first appointment will run for about 45-60 minutes, including a consultation and a treatment session. This will enable us to establish a solid history and have a good understanding of your condition. If your issues are purely muscular, a consultation may not be necessary.
Follow up appointments will usually be around 30-45 .
Your First Appointment
Once you make your first appointment, prior to your first visit, you may want to write down your health history, including surgeries, injuries, allergies and medications you are on. Please also write down how the current problem has developed and how it has been investigated and treated. Don’t forget to bring this information to your first appointment.
Recommendations for Your Acupuncture Appointments
We recommend you wear comfortable clothes that roll up to knees and elbows, or are easily removable.
Do not come for acupuncture treatments on an empty or overly full stomach or having consumed drugs or alcohol.
Consultation and Treatment
Chinese medicine or acupuncture consultation looks into many aspects of your life, such as sleeping patterns, digestion, emotional state, diet, and lifestyle. Unique to Chinese medicine diagnosis, your tongue and pulse may be examined, and areas of concern may be explored. The practitioner will also make note of any non-verbal cues, such as your demeanour, movement, voice, bodily sounds, and complexion.
Your TCM provider is working under a set of diagnostic principles that strive to identify imbalance. This imbalance is made by patterns of disharmony.
An example of imbalance might be a headache.
The TCM provider would look at the headache in a large context, seeking to find if this disharmony is caused by excess (like too much stress or activity) or deficiency (like not enough food or sleep).
Once a Chinese medicine diagnosis is made, we will develop the treatment plan with you that is most suitable to your situation. The treatment could be acupuncture alone, herbal medicine alone or a combination of both.
Prognosis, Follow Up Consultation and Frequency of Treatment
The prognosis, and the amount and frequency of your treatment depend largely on the severity of your health condition and how long it has been a problem.
Generally 1-2 acupuncture treatment sessions per week for 3-4 weeks are required to achieve a satisfactory result for acute problems. For chronic problems, it often requires weekly or fortnightly treatment over some months for progressive results.
With Chinese herbal medicine, formulas to restore chronic conditions may require weeks or months of use, whereas formulas for acute colds, cough or digestive problem can show positive results within a few days.
While you may gain immediate benefits even after one treatment, progress in health conditions is usually measured over a course of treatments, which involves 4-10 treatment sessions. This is done to ensure:
- Sufficient time and treatment is given to see a beneficial change.
- The beneficial changes are progressing and are measurable.
- Enough treatment is given to consolidate beneficial changes.
Follow up appointments often include a short consultation to check any arising issues and treatment.