Here is a quick FAQ-video made by our friend Nora at Detroit Community Acupuncture.  It is cute, bizarre, and purely for laughs.  Feel free to share it with your friends.

Vote for Circle CA!!!

Circle CA has been nominated as one of the best places for acupuncture in the City. Please cast your vote for us. Doing so sends the message that not only is acupuncture a great and affective means of healthcare, but that it can and shoud be affordable!

Here is the link.

Thank you very much,
David, Jen, and Melissa

Spring Cleaning Party!

Spring Time is here! On April 4th, from 3PM to 6PM, we will have our first annual Spring Cleaning at Circle CA. We are asking you to give us a hand with the clean-up. In exchange for your help, we will provide snacks and a gift-certificate worth one free acupuncture treatment -- save it for yourself or give it to a friend.

If you would like to help us out for an hour or so, give us a call and let us know if you plan to attend. Just bring yourself and clothes that you don't mind getting a little dirty.

for contact info: www.circleca.com

How often should I come for Acupuncture?

At Circle CA, we want you to experience maximum relief from your health complaints in the shortest amount of time possible. Often times, you will notice improvement in your condition after just the first or second visit; however, it is common for this to only be a temporary improvement. For acupuncture to have a lasting affect, it is best to receive it frequently and often enough for a cumulative improvement in your health.  

When you come in for your first treatment, your acupuncturist will speak to you about a treatment plan that is best for you. Below are some basic guidelines that apply to most conditions.

If your problem is new, for example back strain from recent overexertion, then you will experience the best benefit from multiple visits in a short period of time. You should receive two or three treatments in a week for a period of one or two weeks. By this time, your problem should be much better, and you and your practitioner can determine if further treatments are necessary.

If you have a long-term problem that you are addressing, then it is usually best to start with a round of treatments close together for a period of time and then slowly increase the amount of time between treatments. This is especially true if you are experiencing a recent flare-up of a chronic problem. For example, let’s say you are coming in for insomnia that you’ve experienced for many months or years, and that it has been very bad for one month. In this case it is best to come in two or three times a week until you notice a noticeable change in the insomnia – usually for two weeks or a month. Once the condition has started to improve to the point that you have better sleep most nights of the week, then the amount of time between treatments can be stretched to once a week. After that occasional maintenance visits should be enough to prevent further problems.

If you are seeking relief from uncontrollable events, such as job related stress or the common cold, then it is best to think of acupuncture as a tool to help you get through those periods. While acupuncture cannot change the fact that your job causes you stress, or that you sat next to someone with the flu on the bus, it can help alleviate the affects of these external pressures. During those times, come in once or twice a week, or as often as you need to alleviate the symptoms.

If you are relatively healthy, and would like to include acupuncture as a part of a preventative regimen, then feel free to come in once a week or every other week. If you listen to your body and pay attention to your emotional state, you will have a good understanding of when it is time to come in.

Please keep in mind that the above guidelines are only suggestions. If your schedule can only accommodate one visit per week, acupuncture can still be of benefit to you. Less frequent acupuncture is better than no acupuncture. If you are coming less often than the suggested guidelines, you will still receive benefits; however it may take longer before the results “stick” and you experience lasting benefit. If you are unable to come as frequently as suggested, please let your practitioner know, so that you may discuss a realistic timeline for treatment and assessing progress.

Triple Base Gallery "Open for the Making" night

On Saturday, February 7th, we hosted the Triple Base Gallery "Open for the Making" Residence for Creativity. The residency members arrived at the gallery, and we had an open discussion about Community Acupuncture and the history of acupuncture in the Bay Area. The participants were very excited by the story of Miriam Lee and her pioneering efforts.

After the talk, all of the participants received a treatment of Miriam Lee's 10 magic points. This allowed them to experience the group healing of Community Acupuncture, and to have a shared experience of receiving the same protocol collectively.

New Additions to Circle CA

Has anyone noticed the new additions to the clinic?

For starters, we hung a bulletin board in the bathroom. David, Jenn and I knew we needed a place to post information about the clinic but we also wanted to provide our patients a place to announce events they may be associated with or services they provide (such as counseling). So please feel free to grab a thumbtack from the board and put up that flyer telling about your band’s upcoming show, your friend’s art opening, or your business card.

Also, last weekend we acquired another recliner widening our circle a bit more. Try it out if its free the next time you’re getting a treatment. We think you’ll like it.

Miriam Lee!

“To practice acupuncture, you must be certain of your intention, your purpose in doing so. It can be done for fame or wealth, to cure or to kill. If the intention is wrong, if you are concentrating on earning money, treating fewer patients and charging higher fees, doing little for much profit, you may get some results from your treatments or you may not….

… But, if you intend to cure, you use all your might to treat patients. You study, you concentrate, you learn all you can. Then when you are with your patients, the best of your knowledge and technique comes to you.”
                       --Miriam Lee, Insights of a Senior Acupuncturist

 
Who is Miriam Lee, and what does she mean to us at Circle Community Acupuncture? She stands in my mind as one of the true role models for acupuncturists. Born in China, she worked as a nurse and a midwife and later learned acupuncture. She moved to Singapore and later to the San Francisco, Bay Area.  

When she arrived in California, it was illegal to practice acupuncture, so she took a job on an assembly line. However, she found it impossible to not offer her skills, and was soon seeing patients clandestinely. Over time, her reputation grew, and her clientele out grew her ability to practice at home. One anecdote she tells is of the steps to her back porch collapsing due to the number of people waiting to receive a treatment from her. Eventually, she found a sympathetic M.D. who allowed her to work out of his office during the off hours.

In 1974 Miriam Lee was arrested for practicing medicine without a license. Her patient’s filled the courthouse at her hearing, and demanded to have the right to receive acupuncture. Many of them had found relief from long-standing chronic complaints, and were angered that this was being taken away from them. Miriam Lee had offered them compassion and health, and now they came to her defense. Thanks to this public outcry, acupuncture was declared an “experimental procedure” and Miriam Lee was granted the right to see patients at SFU. In 1976, acupuncture was legalized in California.

I have never had the opportunity to meet Ms. Lee. When I talk to people who had the chance to work in her clinic, they say it was a multiple-bed space with patients being treated in the same room. At her busiest, she was treating 10 patients an hour, and up to 80 patients a day.

It is clear to me that Miriam Lee is someone who saw the power of acupuncture and was compelled to offer it to as many people as possible. She could have set up shop in a small office and treated one or two people per hour, and charged quite a lot of money for her treatments. Instead, she worked from the heart, and worked in a manner that allowed her to help as many people as she could. At Circle CA, we hold Miriam Lee’s example close to our hearts. I hope  when I am her age and retired, that I can say, I helped as many people as I could, so please spread the word.  If you have experienced benefit from acupuncture at Circle CA, let people know that acupuncture can help, and that it can be affordable.