|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Below are some questions that patients and potential patients sometimes ask:
What happens during an appointment?
This depends on what it is you are coming in for. If it is a musculoskeletal problem, Bob Clickner will take a brief history of your various falls, surgeries and other injuries, and then have you get on the treatment table for acupuncture and/or bodywork during the remainder of your one hour appointment.
Depending on your case, Mr. Clickner may recommend half hour follow up acupuncture treatments or a series of hour long bodywork treatments.
If your health problem is complicated, deep, or pervasive, Mr. Clickner will schedule you for a two hour consultation to start. During this appointment, he will take a detailed health history from you. He may ask about accidents and surgeries, both recent and old. He may ask about diet, sleep patterns, exercise and other health habits. He may ask to see your tongue and feel your pulse as he looks for clues about your particular health complaint. Much of this first visit will be spent taking your history and discussing theories about what is going on. He will also take time during this first appointment to discuss your personal nutritive needs, and recommend certain supplements to address the specific needs of the various organ systems involved in the health condition. In a follow up consultation, he will discuss dietary approaches to assist the body in rebuilding itself. After these two consultations, short follow ups will be scheduled to modify, tweak, and otherwise improve the healing program. Depending on your individual situation, acupuncture, bodywork and/or moxibustion may also be employed to assist the body in its recovery.
Are supplements really necessary?
Patients are sometimes reluctant to add herbs or other supplements to their diet. Taking a pile of pills is what they want to get away from. Bob has noticed, however, that treatments performed on a depleted body to not "take" the way they do on a more robust body -- a patient may feel better briefly and then slip back. A patient who opts to forego supplements will likely not receive as much benefit from acupuncture or bodywork treatments -- supplements are a vital element in healing a chronic condition.
Bob will explain, when recommending supplements, that these pills contain very concentrated amounts of certain food-based vitamins or minerals that they are not getting in their regular diet. Most of these supplements contain "foods" that don't appeal to the American palate but are nevertheless potent healers: bovine or porcine organ meats and glands such as heart, liver, adrenals, thyroid, and so on...! Better to take it as a tablet than try to obtain the organ itself and eat it.
Bob has researched carefully and selected the highest quality supplements available. They are generally very small and easy to swallow. Since they are actually concentrated foods, they are easy for the body to recognize and use (unlike synthetic vitamins, which often do more damage than good). Bob encourages his patients to give the supplements a real chance -- take them religiously and let the body build itself back up with the building blocks these supplements provide.
Detoxification? What is that all about?
Sometimes Bob will recommend a detoxification program. Generally that means avoiding certain foods for a certain period of time, and taking certain herbs designed to clean out toxins in the body. The program will be customized to the person's goals, comfort level and current level of health. For instance, a person in very weak health would do a milder version of cleansing than one in better health. Sometimes Bob may have a patient build up their health through diet and supplements before he recommends any sort of detoxification. Detoxification safely cleanses the body of toxins, waste products, parasites -- "gunk" -- that is keeping it from working optimally. A patient may notice that their allergies subside, that they get less colds, that they have greater energy. One patient noticed that her breast fibroids completely disappeared after doing a series of liver "flushes". Imagine a car with dirty oil and a dirty oil filter. The body likewise gets "gunked up" by life and can run better -- and longer -- with periodic cleansing.
|
|
|
How many visits will it take?
This is a difficult question to answer as a health condition can have many facets and everyone recovers at different rates. Patients who take an active role in the process (for example communicating about changes/lack of changes in symptoms or following dietary suggestions) will notice faster results. Simple health conditions resolve quickly, in as few as three to five visits, while other, multi-layered conditions may take up to a year. This does not mean weekly visits for a year -- at first Bob may want to see you more often, but after awhile, once you have got some momentum, he would ask to see you only now and then. You would come back in when improvement seems to have "levelled off". At these appointments, he would assess your progress, see what the next layer of the "onion" is, and begin peeling. If at any time he feels he is no longer making progress, he is happy to refer you to another practitioner whose approach might work better.
Does insurance cover acupuncture?
Sometimes it does, but every insurance plan is different and you will need to call your insurance provider to see if they do or not. Bob provides a bill with diagnosis codes which you can submit to your insurance provider for reimbursement. Some patients have been successful in getting some reimbursement for treatment. Also, if you work for a company which provides a medical savings account, you can use that money for treatment. Lastly, if you were injured in a car accident, your auto insurance or that of the responsible party will usually pay for treatment. You may need to do a little homework about your options.
NEWS FLASH!!: Members of the University of Virginia health plan, known as Southern Health, will soon be able to get coverage for acupuncture visits with us. Mr. Clickner is in the process of becoming a Southern Health participating provider. We're still vague on the details, but this we know -- members of the UVa community will be able to receive acupuncture treatment at a significantly reduced cost. Bodywork may or may not be covered, and supplements will still be out-of-pocket. This site will be updated when we have more information.
Is acupuncture painful?
Acupuncture is performed with very fine needles, much thinner than the needles on most syringes. Generally, it does not hurt at all when the needles are inserted, but patients often do feel a strong sensation of energy from the needles. If you move while the needles are in it can hurt a bit as they pull against muscle tissue, so it is important to remain still while being treated.
Offering acupuncture, moxibustion, bodywork, herbology and dietary recommendations in Charlottesville and Harrisonburg, Virginia.
|
|
|
