On Pain Scales and Attunement
The pain scale is an imperfect tool. If you can’t give your pain a number or if the question stresses you out and you make a guess that might not be accurate, that’s ok.
As of December 1st, access to our building will move to the Wyndham St entrance (the front doors) and the Baker St entrance will be closed — EXCEPT for Monday evenings after 5pm, when the rest of the building is closed; at those times you’ll still need to come in through the Baker St entrance.
The pain scale is an imperfect tool. If you can’t give your pain a number or if the question stresses you out and you make a guess that might not be accurate, that’s ok.
Today I dealt with election stress by remembering that somewhere in the world (maybe in Guelph?) people who would not like each other at all if they had a conversation were supporting each other’s healing by sleeping side by side in a community acupuncture clinic.
Acupuncture works because it supports the body to do what it already wants to do: rest and heal. Regular visits to a familiar, predictable place where your body gets to feel good (or, maybe just less bad) teaches your nervous system another way of being. Addressing basic needs for comfort (like pillows and blankets, as needed) are a part of the treatment.
While it’s true that most teens take a minute to warm up to the idea of acupuncture, those who do try it tend to get…
According to Cicely Saunders’ concept of total pain, you cannot properly treat a person’s physical pain without addressing their other kinds of pain. In our experience at GCA we have also found that you can provide relief for one kind of pain by treating another kind of pain.
Lately, when someone asks what they should do during acupuncture treatment, I’ve been suggesting Daydream! which is to say, allow yourself to drift into wordless states. If you can. There are other options.
We know it can be risky for someone to identify themselves as having chronic or late-stage Lyme disease. We believe our Lyme patients.
Sometimes people try acupuncture and are disappointed because it didn’t work for them. In many of these cases, they were only able to come in…
People ask us all the time why we’re not putting needles into where it hurts. (“You know it’s my knee that’s sore, not my elbow, right?”) This is a totally fair question! The answer is that we use distal acupuncture: placing needles away from the site we’re treating instead of close to it. Distal points are below the knee, below the elbow, on the head and at the ears. It’s a safe, efficient and very effective way of practising that’s been used for thousands of years.
“What does it feel like?” That’s one of the most common questions we hear from people new to acupuncture. We respond by assuring people that most folks relax pretty quickly, and many people even fall asleep. But that’s not the only thing that happens. A wide range of experiences during acupuncture are considered normal.