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Treatments

What Actually Happens

In The Room

Acupuncture, physiotherapy, cupping, herbal medicine and manual body work.

同病異治

tóng bìng yì zhì · same illness, different treatment

There are five things we do here: acupuncture, physiotherapy, cupping, herbal medicine and Align & Sculpt. None of them is something you order off a list. They are five ways of reaching the same thing, and which one you get is decided by what the first hour turns up rather than by what you came in complaining of.

Two people can walk in with an identical shoulder and leave having had entirely different sessions. Most visits use two or three of these together rather than one on its own, because they were built to be combined, and the smaller techniques, moxibustion and tui na, sit inside a session rather than being booked as one. What follows is each of them in full: what it is, what it feels like, how long it takes, and where we reach for it.

Fine needles placed along a patient's shoulder and upper back

A physiotherapy session in progress on the treatment couch

A practitioner’s hands working either side of the spine across a patient’s upper back

Glass cups set along a patient's upper back during a session

A herbal formula weighed out on the dispensary counter

A practitioner working through a patient's lower back with both thumbs

A patient supported through a women's health treatment session

Acupuncture 針灸

Hair-fine needles at points chosen from your case, to move stagnant circulation and settle a system that is running hot. We use it for six different things, listed below.

Physiotherapy 物理治療

Assessment, then hands-on work, then the loading that makes the result hold. Sports injury, postpartum recovery, and the aches pregnancy puts through a back.

Align & Sculpt 徒手美體

Hands-on work that releases tight muscle and rebalances the structures that pull you out of shape. Booked on its own, unlike tui na.

Cupping 拔罐

Glass or silicone, ten minutes on the back, and a set of round marks afterwards that everybody asks about. Usually alongside needles rather than on its own.

Herbal medicine 中藥

A formula written for your case and rewritten as the case changes. Taiwan-sourced, batch-tested, no guesswork.

Moxibustion and tui na 艾灸 · 推拿

Warmth over a point, and structured Chinese bodywork. Neither is booked on its own. They sit inside an acupuncture or physiotherapy session where the case calls for them.

Women's health 婦科調理

Not a technique of its own. The thread that runs through all five above.

一人一方

The Same Complaint In Two People

Is Rarely The Same Session

Three things decide the mix, and none of them is what you wrote in the booking.

What the hour turns up

Pulse, tongue, sleep, digestion and where you are in the cycle

What is already in play

Medication, a fertility protocol, a pregnancy, a scar still settling

What has to hold

Whether the change needs to last a day, a fortnight or a season

針灸

Acupuncture · zhēn jiǔ

Fine Needles, Placed

Where They Are Needed

Sterile single-use needles, somewhere between the width of a hair and a fine wire, put in at points chosen from what the consultation turned up. Six to twenty of them depending on the case, and most of them nowhere near the part that actually hurts.

The insertion itself is usually nothing. What follows is a dull heaviness or a spreading warmth around the point, occasionally a brief ache that fades within seconds, and that sensation is the part we are looking for. Then the lamp comes down and you are left to lie there for about twenty minutes with a bell within reach. People fall asleep more often than not.

How long. Forty-five minutes, with the needles in for about twenty of them.

Usually paired with moxibustion, cupping, or a herbal formula to carry the work between visits.

Single-use, every time. Needles are opened in front of you and go into a sharps bin at the end. A small bruise at a point happens now and again and is nothing to worry about.

Tell us first if you take a blood thinner, or if you have ever fainted at a blood test. We will lay you flat and use fewer points.

What the needles get used for

One Technique,

Six Different Jobs

Pain relief and sports injury

Sprains, strains and the injuries sport leaves behind. Needles to bring inflammation down, release muscle that has spent a fortnight guarding, and shorten the run back to full movement. Usually run alongside physiotherapy in the same week.

Fertility support 備孕

Sessions timed to the phase of your cycle, and timed around your protocol if you are in one. This is support alongside IVF and IUI, or while you are trying naturally. We work with your fertility clinic and defer to them on dates without argument.

Body regulation

The nervous system side of it. Stress that has settled into the shoulders, sleep that will not start, digestion that has become unreliable, and the flat energy that tends to arrive with all three.

Facial acupuncture

Very fine needles in the face, worked on circulation and on how the skin sits and holds. It is slow and cumulative, closer to upkeep than to a result, and it is a course of sessions rather than a single appointment.

Slimming support

The honest version. Needles for digestion, appetite and energy, sitting alongside the eating and the activity that do the actual work. Nobody here will give you a number or a timeline for it.

Uterus care 調經

Circulation through the uterus and the pelvic region, for periods that hurt or that arrive whenever they feel like it. Often with tui na over the lower abdomen and a formula running alongside.

The needles themselves

Thinner than the ones a blood test uses, and not hollow. They come out of a sealed packet at the couch and go into a sharps bin before you sit up.

6 to 20

Needles in a typical session, most of them nowhere near the sore bit

艾灸

The marks cupping leaves

Yes, it leaves marks. They are not bruises in the ordinary sense, they do not hurt to touch, and the looseness underneath tends to outlast the colour.

3 to 7 days

How long the colour usually takes to fade, occasionally longer if a lot comes up

拔罐 · 艾灸

Cupping · bá guàn · with moxibustion · ài jiǔ

Suction That Lifts,

And Warmth That Sinks In

Cupping is suction. It draws blood to the surface and releases the tight fascia underneath, using either glass warmed for a moment with a flame or silicone squeezed and set down. It feels like a strong pull, as though the skin were being lifted rather than pressed, and it is almost never painful. Sliding cupping feels like a deep massage running in reverse. Afterwards the area is warm and unusually loose. It is most often set down in the same session as the needles rather than booked alone.

Moxibustion is the warmth that tends to travel with it, and it is a technique used inside a treatment rather than a treatment you book. Dried mugwort, compressed into a stick or a small cone, burned close to the skin and never on it. Sometimes it sits on the handle of a needle already in place, sometimes in a small perforated box over the lower abdomen, sometimes held a few centimetres above a point and moved in slow circles until the skin turns pink. The heat is dry and radiant, it arrives slowly, and it travels further in than most people expect. The smell is the other half of it, herbal and smoky and closer to a temple than a candle, and it does follow you home a little.

How long. Ten to fifteen minutes for cups, ten to twenty for moxa. Both are usually added to a session rather than booked on their own.

Where moxa goes. The second half of the cycle, period pain that answers to a hot water bottle, hands and feet that never quite warm up, and the weeks after birth

The marks, honestly. Faint pink to deep purple, fading over three to seven days and occasionally a fortnight. Say so before we start if you have a wedding, a shoot or a beach holiday coming and we will place them where a dress will cover, or leave the cups out entirely.

In pregnancy moxa use is restricted, decided case by case, and only where your obstetrician has agreed to it. No cupping over the abdomen or lower back at any stage.

Not used over broken skin, recent scars, varicose veins, or anywhere you cannot feel heat properly. There is a smokeless moxa if you would rather not carry the smell home.

On the day

An Hour, In The Order

It Actually Happens

Before you come in

Eat something first. Treatment on an empty stomach is the main reason anyone feels light-headed. Loose sleeves help, and there are shorts and a gown in the room if you have come straight from the office.

The talking, and the pulse 問診

The first part of the hour is questions, then the pulse at both wrists and a look at your tongue. Sleep, digestion, temperature and cycle are the case rather than the preamble, which is why nobody is rushing you through them.

Needles in, lamp down

They go in over a couple of minutes, most of them nowhere near the sore bit. Then the lamp comes down, the room goes quiet, and whatever else was going to happen in that hour stops mattering for a while.

The twenty minutes on the table

Heavy, warm and slightly drifting. Some people sleep. There is a bell within reach the whole time, and a needle that aches sharply is a two-second fix rather than something to be polite about.

Walking out

Usually relaxed to the point of being a bit vague. Give yourself ten minutes before driving, drink water, and try not to book anything you need to be sharp for that evening. Most of the change shows up the next day or two.

The fortnight in between

You are in the room for an hour a week at most. A formula, three or four exercises and a note of what to watch for are what carry the work through the rest of it.

推拿

Tui na · tuī ná · inside a session

The Hands That Work

Between The Needles

Tui na is not on the list of things you book. It is structured Chinese bodywork used within an acupuncture or physiotherapy session, worked along the channels rather than the muscle alone. Pressing, rolling, kneading and gripping, done through clothing or a towel. There is no oil, and nothing here asks you to undress further than you want to.

It is firmer than a spa massage and considerably more deliberate. The work across the back is strong and tends to find a point that aches in a way you would describe as useful. The abdominal work is the opposite, slow and warm and much lighter than people brace for, following the breath rather than pushing against it. It takes about ten minutes to stop holding your stomach in.

How long. Twenty to thirty minutes within a session, decided on the day rather than booked in advance.

Where it goes. Mostly the pelvis and lower back, though it does good work on shoulders and necks locked from feeding, and on the mid-back of anyone who lives at a desk.

Usually paired with acupuncture, or with physiotherapy in the same week.

No abdominal work at any point in pregnancy, and we stay well clear of a scar until it has fully healed and your surgeon is content.

中藥 · The part that carries on at home

一人一方

A Formula Written For You,

And Rewritten As You Change

Most of what we prescribe is granulated, a concentrated extract that dissolves in hot water, so there is nothing to simmer for two hours in a kitchen you share. Raw herbs are there for the cases that genuinely need them. Either way the formula is built from your case rather than lifted off a shelf, and it is reviewed every week or two, because a formula for the first half of a cycle is rarely the right one for the second. It is bitter. Nobody has ever finished a cup and called it pleasant.

One thing we stock arrives in a bottle rather than a packet: a dietary supplement, two capsules a day, that sits beside a formula rather than replacing it. Its claims are the ones printed on its label and nothing beyond them, it is not suitable in pregnancy or while nursing, and the whole of it, the strain list and the rest, is set out on its own page.

Tell us everything you take. Prescription medication, supplements, and in particular anything that is part of a fertility protocol, because timing matters and some of it we will deliberately work around. We commonly simplify or pause a formula around retrieval and transfer, and we defer to your fertility clinic on that without argument. We work alongside your fertility clinic and your obstetrician, never instead of them.

物理治療

Physiotherapy · wù lǐ zhì liáo

Hands On First, Then The

Work That Makes It Hold

A first physiotherapy visit is an hour of assessment before anything else happens. How you stand, how you load one side against the other, what hurts and at which precise point in the movement it starts. Then the hands-on part: joint mobilisation, soft tissue release, and dry needling where it is appropriate and you are happy with it.

The second half is the part nobody wants to hear about. Manual therapy opens a window; loading is what keeps it open. You will leave with three or four exercises rather than twenty, because twenty never get done, and four done properly will beat twenty done once.

How long. Sixty minutes for the first assessment, forty-five after that.

Where it goes. Pelvic floor and core rehabilitation after birth, backs and hips through pregnancy, shoulders and necks from feeding, and the ordinary run of sprains, tendon pain and stiff shoulders.

Consent, explicitly. Pelvic floor work is explained in full before it starts, you may have someone in the room, and nothing internal is ever done without a separate conversation first.

Usually paired with tui na or acupuncture, working from the same set of notes rather than a separate file.

徒手美體

Align & Sculpt · tú shǒu měi tǐ

Hands On The Frame,

Not Only The Muscle

A hands-on treatment that gently realigns the body from the inside out. Targeted manual techniques release tight muscle and rebalance the structures that pull you out of shape: a hunched back, rounded shoulders, uneven ribs, a tilted pelvis.

As the posture improves, the body looks more open, lifted and balanced. You stand taller, breathe more freely, and move with ease.

Who it suits. Desk workers, postpartum mothers, and anyone who feels out of alignment.

Booked on its own, unlike tui na, which sits inside an acupuncture or physiotherapy session rather than being booked as one.

After birth. The same rule as the rest of our hands-on work: nothing over the abdomen during pregnancy, and we stay well clear of a scar until it has healed and your surgeon is content.

Where the five get arranged

The Same Five, Arranged Differently

All four chapters, in full

A consultation at the desk before a first treatment

Women's health 婦科調理

Not a sixth treatment standing beside the other five. It is how the other five get used: the same needles, the same warmth, the same formulas, chosen and timed around a cycle, a protocol, a pregnancy or a transition rather than around a symptom on its own. What changes is mostly timing and restriction. A point that is right in week two is wrong in week three, and half of what we can use disappears the moment you tell us you are pregnant. None of that is visible from a treatment menu, which is why it has a page of its own.

What this looks like

A woman resting on the treatment couch during a session

Trying to conceive 備孕

Acupuncture and moxibustion timed to the phase of your cycle, with a formula adjusted as it turns. Support alongside IVF and IUI, or while you are trying naturally, never instead of your clinic.

What this looks like

Loose dried herbs and a folded prescription packet on a counter

Cycles and uterine care 調經

Needles, tui na over the lower abdomen and lower back, and a formula reviewed each cycle rather than repeated out of habit.

What this looks like

A mother and her newborn resting at home in afternoon light

Pregnancy and postpartum 產後調理

Physiotherapy for the pelvic floor and core, tui na for shoulders and neck, and warmth and herbs through confinement and the long months after it.

What this looks like

A woman in midlife sitting by a window before her appointment

Menopause 更年期

Acupuncture for sleep and heat, a formula adjusted through the passage, and physiotherapy for joints that have started to complain.

What this looks like

Safety, marks, and the awkward questions

Marks, Needles And Other Worries

Does acupuncture hurt?

Not in the way people expect. The needles are about the width of a hair. Most people feel a dull heaviness around the point rather than a sharp prick, and falling asleep on the table is common. If a point is genuinely sharp, say so and it comes out.

Are the needles reused?

Never. They are sterile, single-use, opened in front of you and dropped straight into a sharps bin at the end of the session. Cups, moxa boxes and couch linen are cleaned or changed between every patient.

How long do cupping marks last?

Three to seven days for most people, and occasionally up to a fortnight if a lot of colour comes up. They are not painful and they are not bruises in the ordinary sense. Tell us before we start if you have a wedding, a shoot or a holiday coming, and we will place them where clothes will cover or leave the cups out altogether.

Can I book tui na or moxibustion on their own?

No. They are techniques used inside an acupuncture or physiotherapy session and decided on the day from what the case needs, not appointments in their own right. What you book is acupuncture, physiotherapy, cupping or a herbal consultation, and the rest is chosen once you are in the room.

Does facial or slimming acupuncture actually do anything?

Both are slow and cumulative and neither is one dramatic appointment. Facial work is upkeep, aimed at circulation and how the skin sits. Slimming work supports digestion, appetite and energy while your eating and your activity do the heavy lifting. Anyone offering you a figure or a date for either is selling you something.

Which of these are safe during pregnancy?

Much of it, with adjustments, and always once your obstetrician has cleared it. Certain points are avoided outright, there is no abdominal tui na and no cupping over the abdomen or lower back, and moxibustion is restricted and decided case by case. The supplement we stock is a separate matter and is not suitable in pregnancy or while nursing at all. Tell us how many weeks you are at every visit, not only the first one.

Will Chinese herbs interfere with my medication?

They can, which is exactly why we ask for the whole list. Bring boxes or photographs of everything you take, supplements included. We pay particular attention to blood thinners, thyroid medication, blood pressure medication and anything within a fertility protocol. If we are not comfortable with a combination, the herbs come out and we treat with needles instead.

Will my formula change around a transfer?

Usually, yes. We commonly simplify or pause a formula around retrieval and transfer, and if your fertility clinic would rather you took no herbs at all during a cycle, we work without them and say nothing about it. We work alongside your clinic, never instead of it.

How many sessions before anything changes?

It depends entirely on what we are treating and how long it has been going on. We will give you a rough number at the end of the first visit and revisit it out loud rather than quietly extending it. If nothing has shifted by the point we said it would, we say so and either change the approach or send you elsewhere.