The Lane Cove rooms are at 2 Austin Street, directly opposite the Lane Cove Library and a few metres from Longueville Road. If you are coming from the village it is a walk of two or three minutes, and the parking behind the library is the easiest option in the middle of the day.
Lane Cove sends a particular mix of problems through the door. There are the desk-and-commute necks and low backs from St Leonards and the city, the shoulders and elbows of a suburb that plays a lot of tennis, and the knees and Achilles tendons that come with living on a hillside — the stairs down to Tambourine Bay and the streets off Burns Bay Road are their own kind of training load. Lane Cove also has a lot of people in their thirties and forties carrying small children, which is its own demand on a back.
A first appointment is mostly questions and movement testing: where the pain is, what makes it worse, what it stops you doing, and how it has behaved over weeks rather than days. From there you should leave knowing what is proposed, roughly how long it is expected to take, and what would mean changing the plan.
Worth bringing: any imaging or specialist letters you already have, a list of medications, and the shoes you actually walk or train in. If the pain is new and severe, follows a significant fall, or comes with numbness, weakness, fever or any change in bladder or bowel control, see a doctor first — that is a medical assessment, not a treatment question.
The nearest alternative if Lane Cove does not suit you is the Freshwater side, about 14 kilometres away across the Spit.
A key component of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), acupuncture is an alternative complementary therapy that focuses on the improvement of a person's overall wellbeing by stimulating specific points, called acupoints, in the body using thin needles to relieve pain and treat various health conditions.
Acupuncture does not usually cause pain or discomfort. It is a common misconception that acupuncture hurts, and a reason why some people are hesitant to try it. The treatment is not meant to hurt, but during the treatment, the patient may experience some sensations.
These sensations vary between people, depending on their overall sensitivity and level of pain tolerance. Sometimes, the first acupuncture session will be more painful than the succeeding treatments because certain acupoints are being activated for the first time.
Research has shown that acupuncture may have a role in relieving tension headaches and migraines. It can also help alleviate pain and other symptoms that are associated with the following conditions:
During the initial treatment session, the acupuncturist will ask the patient about their medical history to identify the root cause of their health problem. Following the principles of diagnosis in TCM, the acupuncturist may examine the patient's tongue and take their pulse on either wrist. Then, they will ask the patient to lie down on a treatment table and start inserting sterile, disposable needles into specific acupoints.
Acupuncture needles are painless, but a slight tingling sensation may be felt as they're being inserted into the skin. The needles will be left to stay in for about 20 minutes to stimulate the meridians. An acupuncture session may last for 30 minutes, and the patient is advised to receive at least two treatments a week for several months until their body has regained homeostasis.
Acupuncture is highly recommended as an adjunct to other natural therapies or conventional medicine.
