Why do two people with identical symptoms wind up with completely different results from the same treatment protocol?
The answer lies in this little tale of two clients straight out of my practice (Everyone’s name has been changed to maintain client privacy except mine… My name really is Jennifer 🙂 ). I call it:
A Real Pain In The Neck
Meghan arrived at my office complaining about a deep, burning ache in the right side of her neck, combined with piercing pain behind her right shoulder. It had started several months earlier and was now bad enough that her work life and her personal relationships were suffering. She had already tried several other potential “solutions”, with little more than temporary relief from any of them…. Acupuncture was her “last resort” and was both skeptical it could work and praying it would at the same time. Work was now a dreaded torture chamber full of stress and anxiety because of the pain and it wasn’t much better at home. I could see the toll it was taking in her facial expressions, posture and voice as she sat in front of me.
Meanwhile…
Johnathan arrived for his first appointment at the clinic. He was suffering from a deep, burning ache in the right side of his neck, combined with piercing pain behind his right shoulder. It had started several months earlier and was now bad enough that his work life and his personal relationships were suffering. He had already tried several other potential “solutions”, with little more than temporary relief from any of them…. Acupuncture was his “last resort” and was both skeptical it could work and praying it would at the same time. Work was now a dreaded torture chamber full of stress and anxiety because of the pain and it wasn’t much better at home. I could see the toll it was taking in his facial expressions, posture and voice as he sat in front of me.
Hmm….
Both of those clients symptom descriptions sound eerily similar, don’t they? In fact, they’re EXACTLY the same. Meghan and Johnathan had found their way to my clinic because of identical complaints. What was I going to do with these two clients with identical issues? How was I going to treat them?
I could use my Acupuncture tool kit in much the same way you might use the bottle of Aspirin or Tylenol in your medicine cabinet… I could have treated Meghan & Johnathan with a specific combination of acupuncture points (like lung 7) that reliably relax the neck and shoulder muscles, providing them with immediate relief from their agony and sent them on their way. They would have been elated at the relief and grateful they found me… For a while. Then, when the pain returned (often worse than before), they’d be back for another dose of “Acupuncture Aspirin”.
OR…
I could roll up my sleeves, dig in, and do the hard work required to figure out WHY they each had pain in those specific areas and HOW to address those underlying issues in a way that provides lasting solutions so they wouldn’t have to constantly resort to managing symptoms.
This is often like playing a real life version of Sherlock Holmes with your health history. I need to ask seemingly unrelated questions to put together YOUR UNIQUE PROFILE and come up with an effective plan of attack that will give you:
- Immediate relief so you can function today.
- Long lasting corrective action to prevent a recurrence of the problem.
- An understanding of why you’ve got the issue to begin with.
- And tools to use on your own time. That way you can take specific measures outside of my office to help prevent the problems from cropping up again down the road.
This is the opposite of the Acupuncture Aspirin approach. Instead of just needling the points I know will give you temporary relief, I believe in the sometimes complicated process of figuring out the ROOT CAUSES (there’s often more than one contributing factor) of your issues and attacking them head on, often with a variety of techniques that aren’t limited to Acupuncture.
Back to our friends Meghan and Johnathan:
It turns out Meghan had taken a new job at a different company shortly before her pain problem started. She loved the work and got along well with her co-workers. So it wasn’t directly related to the stresses of the new job…. But it was something in this new workplace that was contributing to her problem. The permanent solution was simplicity itself. I figured out that Meghan’s new workstation was forcing her to contort her body at weird angles that didn’t fit well with HER biology (somebody else might work at that same desk for decades with no ill effect). I:
- Used a combination of PEMF (pulsed electromagnetic frequencies), acupuncture and guided meditation to get her amped up nervous system to calm down and relax.
- Taught her an exceptionally effective breathing exercise to help keep her nervous system from reverting back to a constant state of “fight or flight”.
- Treated her with a specific combination of acupuncture points and essential oils to release and relax her neck and shoulder, giving her immediate pain relief.
- Gave her gentle, relaxing craniosacral therapy to help realign her neck and back.
- Helped her rearrange her workspace to get rid of the ROOT CAUSE of the pain (This is THE BIGGIE. Everything else I did would only be TEMPORARY without this piece).
Johnathan’s case was a little different. He hadn’t realized it, but Johnathan’s pain started each morning around the same time…. 30 minutes after his daily stop on his way to work at his favorite coffee shop for coffee and a breakfast sandwich. Once I unearthed this tidbit of information, I applied some very gentle pressure to his ileocecal valve ( the valve that separates your large and small intestine – it’s located on the right side of your abdomen, about where your appendix is) and he literally jumped off my treatment table in pain!
That’s when Johnathan became convinced I was some kind of clairvoyant, but the answer was much more grounded in reality than that…
Johnathan had a sensitivity to something he was either eating or drinking every morning that was the root cause of his pain. It was either:
- An individual ingredient in the sandwich
- The coffee or something in it.
- Something ON or IN the coffee or sandwich that’s not supposed to be there. (Coffee commonly available in North America for example is well known to have high levels of a nasty mold called Ochratoxin present on the beans. Read more about the problem here.)
- OR a combination of the above factors (plus other possible contributors).
This is VERY common. In fact, whenever a client comes to me with neck pain on their right side and/or right shoulder pain I always suspect a food trigger is at least contributing to the problem.
Johnathan’s treatment plan included all of the same in-office components as Meghan’s PLUS:
- An elimination diet protocol to confirm food as the root cause (It was).
- Specific acupuncture and acupressure treatments to resolve his digestive tension.
- A unique massage technique to release his ileocecal valve, which wasn’t opening and closing correctly.
- Specialized work to retrain his digestive and nervous systems. These reduced his sensitivities and decreased his reaction to the offending foods so he could live life normally without having to avoid the foods he loves.
Two clients with identical symptoms… Two very different solutions.
Everyone has this big complicated, intertwined mess of moving parts that form their existence including:
- Their genetics and gene expression
- Their individual health history
- Their life experience
- Their environment, past and present.
- Their upbringing
- Their diet
- Their relationships
- Their coping mechanisms
- Their exposures to toxic substances
- And a WHOLE lot more.
And every bit of that has a role in how you feel now, how you’re going to feel tomorrow AND… HOW YOU’RE GOING TO RESPOND TO A GIVEN TREATMENT PROTOCOL.
And that’s where I come in:
At Pinpoint Acupuncture Clinic, I specialize in doing the hard work of figuring out the root cause of your unique situation and coming up with the individualized combination of factors that’s going to provide you with lasting relief.
This is different than the the Acupuncture Aspirin Approach of treating just the points I know are going to give you some immediate, albeit temporary relief (although I’m definitely going to hit you up with the fast acting stuff too).
It’s also why a multi-faceted, multi-modality, uniquely tailored approach including Acupuncture, Gua Sha, Cupping Treatments, PEMF, Reflexology, essential oils, dietary and lifestyle adjustments, and outside help from qualified, complimentary professionals works best. Everyone is different and everybody requires a slightly different recipe to elicit REAL, LASTING CHANGE.
If you decide to come to Pinpoint Acupuncture I am going to assign you some homework…. I am going to ask you A LOT of questions…. I am going to dig in and do my level best to help you become the best you you can possibly be… Healthy, alert, pain free and able to manage life’s stress and curveballs without winding up flat on your back.
I’m NOT going to serve you up a heaping helping of Acupuncture Aspirin and send you out the door.
So….
If magic beans, fairy dust and leprechauns riding unicorns are what you’re looking for, I might not be the right fit for you.
However….
If you’ve got some problems you’re committed to solving, are willing to make some changes where necessary, and really want a different result than what you’ve been getting, then my unique approach to pain, stress, weight and health issues might be just what you’re looking for.
Let’s get started:
If you live anywhere in East Hants or Halifax Regional Municipality including Enfield, Elmsdale, Fall River, Halifax, Bedford and Dartmouth, my clinic is only a hop, skip & jump away.
Call Jennifer to book your Acupuncture treatment today:
902-209-5137
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