“Frequency of acupuncture?”

2x a week as an intensive schedule of treatment for my way of practicing and yes, it could expedite the healing/balancing process for you.

Not all acupuncturists are created equal... if after a few weeks of treatment you feel no improvement, try another one. Also, ask about your practitioner's training and experience level... make sure they actually went to school for acupuncture/Chinese medical training and aren't a Chiropractor or M.D. or Physical Therapist who took a weekend seminar to "learn" it. Best of luck to you.

Honestly, it'll just double the cost. Treatment more freuqently than once per week is really only necessary for acute conditions. When working with something chronic, like what you are working with, you want to give your body time to adjust. Think of each treatment like changing the temperature in a room. If you turn the thurmostat down and only wait five minutes before turning it down again, the room will be too cold within the hour. If you wait the hour instead, you may find that you don't need to turn the temperature down anymore.

Okay, I think in your case, 2 sessions a week is better ...

The more sessions, the quicker the results.

The prognosis and diagnosis often rely on how you are presenting your symptoms and your body's reaction to the treatment. You should ask your practitioner if doing 2 sessions a week would help improve faster, seeing as the practitioner can more accurately tell by checking your tongue & pulse. But generally speaking, chronic conditions do often require more frequent treatments grouped together to offer an improved efficacy. Your condition sounds like a synergistic effect of acupuncture combined with herbal supplements would have the best outcome. Ask your practitioner what they think of using Tian Ma Gou Teng formula to help with your condition. Make sure to check with both your practitioner and primary if there are any prescription medicine complications with either acupuncture treatment or herbal supplementation.

Live Happy,

Michael

Thank you for your inquiry! At the beginning of the therapy, we usually recommend to our patients attending therapy twice a week for a month and then we can reassess. It is evident that if a patient has improved after two weeks, then we are reducing the frequency. Based on your condition, it might be recommended to see your practitioner twice a week to observe some improvement. Once a week might not be enough for your body to respond to the therapy, yet. And regarding the cost, this is something that you should discuss with your practitioner and maybe he/she can help you and you might be able to find a compromise.

Alexandre Hillairet, DAOM.

Hi,

As the effectiveness and results all depend on the each person's condition and health, you should ask the doctor for the frequency of the treatment. Some may require 5 or 3 per week depending on your condition at the moment even with same diagnosis. Please consult your doctor.

Sincerely, 

Scott Sang In Lee

I usually tell my patients that that answer lies in their ability to make some changes in their daily lives that will aid the progress along. If the situation it’s truly heat in the liver, see if your acupuncturist can help you sort out the cause for the heat in the liver. The most common cause of that condition would be alcohol consumption, but there are certainly others, such as certain medications.

Warmly,

Natalie Ramsey, MS LAc

If you were in China, they would be treating you 6 days a week.

Glenn R. Williams, D.C., L.Ac.

I'm sorry. This is out of my area of expertise. I will say that ringing in the ears, tinnitus, does not currently have a cure, but it does not hurt to do acupuncture. Search "Tinnitus Management Workbook" on Google. That information may be helpful for you.

I ALWAYS start my patients out at twice a week. I don't move to once a week (which I consider maintenance) until symptoms go down and stay down between treatments. Once we're to a level acceptable to the patient, THEN I move to once a week. So yes, I would suggest getting treatments more frequently. I would also ask your practitioner about herbs that might help you. Good luck.

2-3 times per week

Thank you for your question,

Yes, in general more treatments closer in frequency tend to be more effective in most cases.

Kind Regards,
B

This is a great question and somewhat goes to a kind of systemic problem we have here in the US around acupuncture delivery. When we look at acupuncture delivery in a country like China, we typically see patients receiving acupuncture several times per week for a week or two at which point the patient is reevaluated to determine whether or not more treatment is necessary. They can do that because almost everyone in China is open to acupuncture and it's a first line treatment for many issues. Chinese acupuncture providers are seeing lots of patients; they can have lower fees and still make a living - not to mention in China medicine is socialized, so the government is footing a chunk of the bill.

In the US though, most patients don't immediately think of acupuncture when they have a problem and usually they come to us last rather than first. Since acupuncturists aren't seeing the same patient numbers, they have to charge more in order to make a living. So the model we've adopted in the west is built around one treatment per week.

Setting aside the money issue, what works best? To be honest, when patients are experiencing severe or extreme symptoms, multiple treatments per week, at least in my experience, often provides superior results. I treat mostly pain conditions and my general rule of thumb is: if a patient's pain is routinely above 7-8 on a 10 point scale, I prefer to start with 2-3 treatments per week for one to two weeks. After that we can usually drop back to one treatment per week and continue making progress.

If I were working with you, I'd probably group your symptoms into two buckets:

1. Fatigue and weakness
2. Tinnitus

I'd then suggest working on the fatigue and weakness first as, in my experience, these tend to respond faster to acupuncture than tinnitus. If your experience of fatigue and weakness seems severe or extreme (and it kinda does), then 2 treatments per week for a couple of weeks might be what you need to get some traction on these issues.

Tinnitus is a problem that, again in my experience, doesn't respond as quickly to acupuncture. I wouldn't try doubling down on treatments expecting a faster resolution on this particular problem.

What I wouldn't expect (and, in my opinion, what few US acupuncturists should expect) is for you to pay full price for each treatment and come in for more than one session per week indefinitely. There should be a clearly articulated end-goal for multiple sessions per week and your provider should have a solid plan for getting to that goal and then ramping down to a different treatment interval.