Erin Y.

Long Beach, CA

5 Stars

3/14/2016

This review is both long in length and long overdue as I've been seeing Anna on-and-off since 2009, and she has had a significant positive impact on my life in our time together. She has helped me manage my stress levels and improve both my sleep and immune system, but perhaps the most significant impact she's had on my health is in the work she's done on my digestive system. She weaned me off Nexium over the course of 6 months, which I had been taking for 5 years for GERD (if you want to know more about this, I wrote a rather lengthy testimonial that you can find on her website). She is practically a superhero as far as I'm concerned. 

Some things you should know about her, her practice, and what to expect:

In short, Anna is an amazing person. She's kind, intelligent, compassionate, and has a wonderful outlook on life. She treats everyone with respect and truly wants to help her patients. Because she wants to help you, she needs to know more about you. Your first visit will require some paperwork, some face-time with Anna, and a few more dollars than a normal visit (because time = money, duh). She will tell you what to expect during your treatment, the type of results you should expect to see, and isn't quick to "diagnose" you with a medical condition of any kind - she listens to you and gets to work treating your symptoms.

On the subject of time and money, Anna offers multiple appointment options to her (non-first-timer) patients. She offers day, evening, and occasionally weekend hours (which can vary with her schedule because she's also a super mom, but it's cool because her availability is always posted on her website). You can make an appointment with or without a consultation; the latter will save you a little time and money, but I'm partial to talking to her in private beforehand. She's a good listener, and I find that it only helps her know more about what's going on in my life so she can better help me. She offers package deals to ongoing patients as well, so if you decide to stick around for a while, you can save some money that way. Whether you opt for a consultation or not/package deal or not, you should typically expect to be on the table for over an hour. The price you pay is worth every penny for the amount of time you get. Anna lets your body decide when you're done (you will know), so she never rushes you out the door. Consider it a nice time to relax, treatyoself, and take a nap (more on napping with needles in your body shortly).

The atmosphere is a community one, and she offers heated/unheated massage tables, recliners, and inversion-type chairs to meet your individual physical needs and preferences (with fuzzy blankets and hot packs to boot). Community treatments mean more available appointment times and also help keep costs down so she can treat more than one person at a time (win). Her patients respect the space and stay fairly quiet, but there is always some low-volume music to help drown out some of the ambient noise. You might think community treatments lack privacy, but when your needles are primarily only going in your distal extremities, it's really no big deal. Yes, you read that correctly...needles typically only go from your knees to your toes, from your elbows to your fingers, and in your head. The method of acupuncture Anna practices is different from many other acupuncturists in that the needles are typically not applied locally if you're experiencing pain. The benefits are experienced locally, however (I told you she was a superhero), as well as throughout your body (improved sleep, relaxation, immunity, etc.). I promise. Read all her reviews!

As I mentioned above, you will likely fall asleep with needles in your body. The number of needles you get depends on what ails you, but they are EXTREMELY small needles and generally don't hurt. If you've never experienced acupuncture before, you will feel a quick sting when a needle is inserted that fades within a second or two, and then you no longer feel them (as long as you don't move around). It sounds crazy, but once the needles are in, your body begins to relax and staying still is actually very easy (especially since many patients fall asleep...sometimes they snore. It happens. If you don't like it, bring earplugs). 

These are the highlights, but Anna will explain all this to you up front. She's honest and open with her patients, and if you don't see results, she will tell you to stop coming. Yes, you read that correctly. She doesn't sit idly by taking your money if your time together isn't beneficial. At one point, she and I had a chat about my anxiety levels that weren't improving as much as she liked, and she urged me to dig deeper to find out the root of the problem before coming back. She's truly changed my life. Please read the rest of her reviews... I hope you see that she's incredibly skilled and trust her to help you too!