The First visit – is longer than your follow up visits and entails an in-depth health history. The health history is a very important part of your care.

Please provide accurate and honest answers to your health history. All Questions asked guide the Chinese Medical Doctor and give us an in-depth look at the cause of the problem.

The answers you provide allow us to tailor a treatment specifically for you. This is one of the strongest points of Chinese medicine. It is the chief reason why people experience broad lasting changes after receiving acupuncture. In addition, it means that treatments can be modified as you change and heal.

Are you ready to get the most out of your next acupuncture treatment? Remember these things: Before your first visit:

• Please arrive 10 minutes before your scheduled time, to fill out paperwork before your appointment. Also try to avoid scheduling an appointment before or after a strenuous activity. Squeezing in acupuncture immediately between two other events, has a tendency to make you either late for or stressed out during your treatment.

• Eat a light meal 2 hours before your treatment, but do not go for acupuncture on an empty stomach. It can leave you feeling lightheaded or physically depleted.

• Avoid caffeine, alcohol/drugs at least 24 hours before your appointment. Acupuncture works to shift you away from that sympathetic (fight-or-flight) state and toward a parasympathetic (rest-and-digest) one. Coffee inhibits this process, and makes I difficult to get an accurate Pule (racing) and Tongue (stained) reading. The goal of acupuncture is to bring more awareness to how we feel: Alcohol numbs us, disrupting this effect.

• Before your first acupuncture visit make a list of any significant medical events in your life, like family disease history, car accidents, broken bones, other serious injuries, long-term illnesses, surgeries, etc. Also make note of any medications you are taking currently as well as any that you took long-term in the past (e.g., birth control pills).

We tend to forget these things, or assume they’re irrelevant, but from an acupuncture perspective they help contribute to your overall picture of health. Your acupuncturist will want to hear about them. When in doubt about whether to include something, it’s always better to mention it.

• Wear loose comfortable clothing for private acupuncture appointments; loose clothing usually makes things easier for you and the practitioner. It’s especially important if you’re going for a community acupuncture appointment, because treatments are performed in a group setting with clothes on.

• Last but not least, please turn off your phone. Not on vibrate. Off. Do it before your appointment actually starts, to avoid forgetting and/or getting distracted by a call or message immediately before you’re about to begin. This is your time and no one else’s. Make it count.