Dear Patient,
Someone who’s new to acupuncture will sometimes wonder if they’ll have to keep doing acupuncture forever. Is it like a stabilizing pharmaceutical drug—once you start using it, is your body reliant on it to stay healthy and in balance?
It’s entirely up to you, dear patient.
You certainly can keep doing acupuncture forever if you want to. Many of my patients have come in at the same time every week for years, and will probably continue to do so indefinitely—not because they have do, but because they choose to. Their body isn’t dependent on acupuncture to function; they just feel better when they get it regularly, and worse when they don’t. Or maybe they just like the ritual of it. People might get regular acupuncture for the same reasons why they have a standing phone call with a friend every Sunday, or go to the gym twice a week, or read in bed at night before going to sleep—because it nourishes them in some way.
But what happens more often is that acupuncture becomes part of the ebb and flow of life. A person will get treatments for a time—maybe a few weeks, maybe a few months or years—and then stop. Maybe it’s because they feel better, or because they moved, or their schedule changed or they had a baby. And life goes on, without acupuncture. Sometimes they’ll come back—when their pain flares up, or their stress gets to be too much, or they moved back to town or it’s time to have another baby. Or maybe acupuncture becomes a distant memory—a thing they did for a time, then stopped.
But every treatment, every point combination, every restful hour, each singular needle…it all becomes a part of your story. One acupuncture treatment, one needle even—and you are never again the same.
So you don’t have to do acupuncture forever. But whether you choose to or not, it will forever be a part of you.
Love and gratitude,
Your Acupuncturist
My first acupuncture treatments began informally without much consistency in Los Angeles, 1976 until 1982. I moved to Nashville in 2006, married in 2010 and began regular treatments at Encircle in 2015. Acupuncture has helped me physically, psychologically and it has given me a sense of community I wasn't even aware I needed! So..... thank you!!