New patients are encouraged to book an appoinment through our online booking system and fill in the initial intake form and send it to info@agapeacu.com before you travel to the clinic.
You may also call at 512-291-3808 to request a convenient hour visit.
All beginings are hard. In-clinic treatment makes your journey to optimal health easier. Read more about how acupuncture and other treatment modalities work...
Based on your overall health condition, your response to acupuncture and your lifestyle, our acupuncturist will decide what treatment modality, and what frequency is best for you.
Though acupuncture plays an important role in Oriental Medicine, it doesn't mean it is the only modality that works. In fact, each treatment modality has its strength and limitations. Once you complete a comprehensive initial intake and go through a diagnostic treatment plan, our acupuncturist will be able to optimize a highly personalized holistic care plan for you.
Many chronic diseases, premature aging are the result of unhealthy habits. While the acupuncturist is pulling you toward health, your lifestyle might be pushing you to the opposite direction. Sometimes it's not the treatment happened in the clinic that is not working, it could be your habits dragging you down.
Our acupuncturist will go through details of your lifestyle to see how your daily routine is affecting your health and figure out possible changes that can enhance the treatment outcomes and make a big difference to your life.
Don't imagine that we would suggest drastic unpractical changes. We absolutely understand how important your family, your work and your hobies is, as well as your health. We will make sure you have the right knowledge to live a healthy lifestyle, which will continue benifitting you even after the holistic care plan is finished.
Hopefully, after a while, you will build a good system of at-home self-care to save you travels to the clinic.
Acupuncture is a form of treatment that involves inserting very thin needles through the skin at strategic points of the body to various depths.
Acupuncture is an important component of oriental medicine treatment. Synergy occurs when it is combined with other forms of treatment such as cupping, scraping, infra-red therapy, herbal supplement, tuina massage, life style alignment, etc.
Acupuncture can treat a wide range of conditions, just about anything that might affect a patient's quality of life. It is also a natural modality to boost immune system and maintain optimum health.
Though acupuncture has stood the test of thousands of years test in practice in China, it is still relatively new in the United States. It was most commonly used to treat pain since it was first introduced. Increasingly, it is being used for overall wellness, including stress management. More than 10 million acupuncture treatments are administered annually in the United States to benefit patients of various health complaints.
Traditional Chinese medicine explains acupuncture as a technique for treating the human body as a whole, balancing the body’s energy flow, restoring organ functions to target the root cause of disease thus resolving symptoms and reversing disease.
In terms of biochemistry and physiology, acupuncture stimulates the central nervous system to adjust hormone secretion to balance itself which enhances the body’s natural healing abilities through complex neurochemical pathways that affect the immune system, the endocrine system, the nervous system and the inflammatory process. Research also proves that acupuncture can increase blood flow to a certain part of the body by stimulating specific points to fasten the body’s healing process.
The risks of acupuncture are low if you have a competent, certified acupuncturist using sterile needles and practice the Clean Needles Technique. Single-use, disposable needles are now the practice standard, so the risk of infection is minimal.
Most common side effects include soreness and minor bleeding or bruising of the needles site.
However if you fall in any categories listed below, make sure your acupuncturist is acknowledged so that they can take precausions:
Have a bleeding disorder or taking blood thinners. Your chance of bleeding or bruising from the needle site may increase.
Have a pacemaker. Electro-acupucnture should be avoided as the electrical pulses to the needles can interfere with a pacemaker’s operation.
Are pregnant. Some strategic points have the effect of inducing labor, thus if not for the purpose of helping a delayed labor, these points should be avoided.
It stings a little but nothing like a blood test or injections. Acupuncture needles are so fine (almost as thin as hair) that they don’t feel like hypodermic needles used for blood tests or injections. In some cases, you can barely feel the acupuncture needles are in place. Most commonly, you may feel some sensitivity on the needle site. After insertion, a needle may cause soreness, heaviness, distending or numness sensation as the body is reacting.
Overall, most people find acupuncture relaxing and many fall asleep during treatment.
Wear loose-fitting clothes. Your acupuncturist may have you change into a robe, or they may be able to access the necessary points by rolling up your pant legs or sleeves. Make it easy on them by wearing loose-fitting clothing as 50 grams of pressure on the body surface would affect the neurotransmission effect of acupuncture.
Avoid recreational drug, alcohol, coffee and anything that may stain your tongue for at least 2 hours before the treatment. Acupuncture points are selected based on the practitioner's diagnose made by examinations including pulse palpitation, tongue observing and interrogation. The color of the tongue would greatly affect the practitioner's conclusion of tongue observing. In addition, research shows even low doses of caffeine may hinder acupuncture’s pain-fighting power.
Avoid going on an extremely full stomach. When your stomach is full, the blood flow to the stomach increases drastically to digest food, making it hard for acupuncture to guide the re-constructive blood to the diseased area.
The number of treatments that a patient might require for any given condition varies widely from case to case just like it does in any medical modality. It depends on the duration, severity, nature of your complaint and also your response to acupuncture.
It’s important to speak with a licensed acupuncturist who can give you more targeted information depending on what you are looking for. They will take into consideration how severe a condition is, how long it has been a problem, the overall health condition of a patient to form a treatment plan.Though the whole treatment process may take a while, you shall start to experience the changes that acupuncture would bring pretty soon after you put yourself in good hands.
To help reduce the number of total treatments required, practitioners may suggest dietary modification, specific exercises regimes, relaxation techniques, self-massage, and/or herbal supplement, all of which may help to increase the efficacy of acupuncture.
Communicate sufficiently with the acupuncturist about any of your questions, concerns before you are on the treatment table.
Then relax. You are encouraged to switch your cellphone to silent mode and put it away. Do not change your position or make sudden movements when needles are in. If you feel uncomfortable or need to go, let your practitioner know.
Treatment outcomes differ from patient to patient. Most patients experience some degree of symptom relief after their first treatment. This may happen immediately after the treatment, or a few hours or a couple of days later. Some patients may feel their conditions get worse before they get better. 5% of patients may not respond to acupuncture.
It can take up to 48 hours for the body to fully process the stimulation of a single acupuncture treatment session. To get the most of acupuncture treatment, patients are encouraged to stay warm, avoid cold drinks and food within 30 mins after the treatment, follow practitioners’ instructions of home care, take herbal supplements punctually.
