First appointments can be pretty anxiety inducing right? A lot of the time we don’t really know what to expect or exactly what treatment will involve.
Demystifying your first treatment is actually a fairly straight forward process, as there are some fundamental aspects to a Chinese Medicine consultation and treatment.
Depending on your main health concern(s), your first treatment should take around 75 minutes. You can expect any further treatments down the line to be shorter – around 45 minutes to an hour.
The first 30 mins will involve a detailed consultation and assessment of your health. First we will focus on gathering information about you main health concerns and goals before expanding this into getting a better understanding of your overall health. We’ll discuss a broad range of topics including your sleep, digestion, energy levels and lifestyle. While it may seem a bit strange that we are taking about your bowel motions when you are seeing me for shoulder pain, it helps me understand your health holistically and how to come up with a treatment that suits you as an individual. Filling out your intake form before you come into the clinic will also help to reduce the consultation time.
From there we will discuss an individual treatment plan, what you can expect from treatment and any pertinent risks. This also gives you some time to comment on anything you think we might have missed or to ask any questions that you might have.
We will then proceed to giving you acupuncture treatment. This involves this insertion of very fine stainless-steel needles into specific acupuncture points along the body’s many energy pathways (meridians). The quantity and location of the needles will vary person-to-person and treatment-to-treatment, but I will talk through the sensations and feelings you might experience. Once the needles are in it’s time for you to relax! I’ll leave you on the table for around half an hour.
Any other treatment modalities like cupping or gua sha will be carried out towards the end of your treatment.
At the end of the treatment I will give you any additional advice or important information to help you in-between treatments, along with my contact details so you feel supported.
Not too scary right? If you have any questions about booking your first treatment reach out and say hello!
