The needling is the short part. What decides whether it helps is the twenty minutes before it, and that is where I spend the effort.
For a musculoskeletal problem, that means movement testing: which directions are restricted, which reproduce the pain, what the joint above and below are doing, and whether the pattern is mechanical at all. A pain that does not change with position or activity is not behaving mechanically, and that changes what I do and sometimes means I refer instead. For anything internal, it means the full history — sleep, digestion, cycle, energy, medications, what has been tested and when — plus pulse and tongue.
Then I re-test after the session, so both of us can see what changed rather than relying on how you feel walking out of a quiet room, which is not the same thing.
What I want you to leave the first appointment with: what I think is going on, what I propose, roughly how many sessions before we should know, what it will cost over that course, and what would make me change the plan. If I cannot give you those five answers, I have not assessed you properly yet.
What I refer rather than treat: progressive weakness or numbness, anything with fever, unexplained weight loss, a joint that is hot and swollen, and any new symptom in someone over fifty that has not been looked at. The clinic is in Lane Cove, opposite the library, and I am registered with AHPRA under the Chinese Medicine Board.
