Acupuncture

Acupuncture Appointments With Gretchen L. Gonzalez, AP, DOM

For First Time Patients
For your first appointment you will have to fill out a health history form as well as thoroughly reading and signing a Consent to Treatment form.  All of this is now done online in the Patient Portal once your first appointment has been scheduled.  Make sure to fill these out before your scheduled appointment.

What to Wear
Wear comfortable and loose clothing that allows easy access to the legs, arms and back.

What to Expect from a Treatment with Gretchen L. Gonzalez, AP, DOM
Acupuncture is a gentle, non-invasive and powerful treatment modality that helps your body return to a state of balance or ‘homeostasis’.  When the body’s energy reserves are calm and balanced the body can defend and repair itself more effectively.

You will most likely feel relaxed and restful throughout the treatment, many people even fall asleep during treatment.

You may feel any of the following:
•  A slight prick on insertion of the needles – like that of a mosquito bite but this should not last for more than an instant.
•  Pressure, tingling or warmth around the needle once it is inserted to the treatment depth.
•  A sensation of movement in areas adjacent to or distant from the point that the needle is in.

My treatment style consists of a mixture of techniques learned through my studies with teachers in the Kototama and Hari lineages of acupuncture both of which originate from Japan.  I use gentle needle insertion and stimulation techniques to stimulate the balancing movement of the body’s energy to help your system function at it’s most effective levels.  I will use the information I gather from taking your pulses, palpating various acupuncture points and meridians (the channels through which the body’s energy flows) and observing and questioning to determine a diagnosis and a treatment with the intention, always, of balancing the energy movement and texture in your pulses.  When the pulses are balanced the body is in balance and the body’s systems have the power, and the sustenance to work with ease and health is maintained.

Repeated sessions with me will be focused on continuing to balance the pulses to remind the body what it is to be in a balanced state – a state of health – rather than in a state of dis-ease.