Acupuncture is part of a complete medical diagnostic system

Traditional Chinese Medicine is built around a complete system of medical diagnosis. When you step into the office for treatment, your acupuncture physician asks you questions about your digestion, sleep patterns and emotions. She looks at your skin color and at your tongue. Very importantly, she takes your pulse using several fingers on each wrist. All of this information is used to diagnose a pattern of health and illness. Diagnosis goes much deeper than symptoms. For example, you may have a headache, but that is a symptom of a deeper imbalance. The goal of treatment is to restore your body to health, not just to relieve or mask your headache. In order to restore health, your practitioner needs to understand what type of headache you have, and the overall pattern of imbalance. The diagnostic system is the single most powerful component of Traditional Chinese Medicine. All other treatments are based upon the diagnosis.