During your first consultation the practitioner will determine your personalised pattern through careful diagnosis using Chinese medicine diagnostic methods.
Your practitioner begins by asking in-depth questions about your medical history, including family background, lifestyle and diet. This is followed by examining the tongue, feeling the pulses on both wrists and palpating painful areas of the body in order to determine your pattern, inform your starting point of treatment and work out a treatment plan capable of improving the underlying disorder.
Prior to treatment you will be asked to sign a consent form. For the treatment fine needles will be inserted into specifically selected acupuncture points. On insertion, with or without a guide tube, a light pin-prick and a sensation of dullness or tingling may be felt as the qi arrives and grasps the needle (de qi) but it is not unmanageable and only lasts a few seconds.
Other techniques, such as moxibustion, tui na, gua sha or cupping are commonly used in conjunction with acupuncture.
During the consultation, which last approximately one to one and a half hour, the practitioner’s presence and attention is exclusively dedicated to your treatment.
Acupuncture can make you feel peaceful, calm and relaxed or energised. But occasionally you may feel drowsy, so it is best to avoid any vigorous activities for a couple of hours after treatment. Other side-effects may include mild dizziness and very occasionally minor bruising. All such reactions are short-lived.
How many treatments will I need?
This depends on the nature of your condition and your constitutional strengths. In general, the longer you have had the condition, the longer it might take to improve.
Treatments are usually weekly and changes are mostly felt after four to six treatments, although sometimes less treatments are sufficient. Acupuncture works cumulatively; each treatment builds on the next. Your practitioner will monitor your treatments carefully to confirm that it matches your needs and you are happy with the progress.
What should I do before I come for treatment?
- Avoid alcohol, coffee and foods and drinks (e.g. red wine) that may colour your tongue.
- Try neither to have an empty stomach nor an overfull stomach immediately before treatment.
- Wear loose closing as needles can be placed anywhere in the body.
