The Three Stages of Acupuncture Treatment

Understanding the three main stages of acupuncture treatment can help you know what to expect when you decide to try acupuncture out for yourself!

Beginning Phase

While it’s possible to feel an amazing life changing effect from just one acupuncture treatment, its more common for most people to need a few treatments before they can notice a significant impact of acupuncture on their symptoms.

During this period of the first 1-3 treatments, you may notice only small improvements as the treatments build and grow momentum on themselves. You may also notice improvements to other areas, such as reduced stress, improved sleep or digestion.

The goal of this beginning phase is to build momentum. With acupuncture we are trying to stimulate your body’s own ability to heal itself. This is why the first few treatments are ideally scheduled closely together, for example coming in twice a week the first week. As the momentum builds, we then can space treatments further and further apart as you begin to see improvement.

Middle Phase

After the third treatment, you should start seeing noticeable improvements in your symptoms.

The amount of time you are able to spend symptom-free can help us determine the best time to come in next. We still want to keep the momentum going, but are able to space treatments further apart at this point, once a week, every other week, etc.

Depending on your condition you want treated, the severity of the symptoms and other factors, this stage can vary in time.

End Phase

You reach a point where your symptoms feel under control and can now come in for maintenance care.

You can come in when you know there is an upcoming event that may aggravate your condition; for example if you struggle with social anxiety and know you have a big work presentation coming up or if you have back pain but need to move houses.

Many people come to enjoy the way acupuncture treatments makes them feel and will come in monthly or every few months for a general tune-up and to help catch new, small issues before they turn into big ones.