Acupuncture in Portland, Oregon &
Vancouver, Washington
Acupuncture and Integrative East Asian Medicine
Expert treatment from an award-winning leader in the field, Dr. Lee Hullender Rubin, DAoM, MS, LAc, FABoRM.
We specialize in providing gentle therapies for the following:
Fertility
Pelvic and vulvovaginal pain
Cancer treatment and survivorship
What is Acupuncture?
Acupuncture is a frequently used medical treatment to support you in your health and wellness journey. Acupuncture is a procedure where sterilized needles smaller than the thickness of human hair are inserted into the skin at specific body locations to promote self-healing. Acupuncture is part of a whole system of medicine originating in China, and is used alongside other therapies like cupping, gua sha (skin friction/scraping technique), heat therapies, tui na (Chinese medical massage), acupressure, transcutaneous electroacupoint stimulation (TEAS), laser acupuncture, as well as dietary and lifestyle modifications. The whole system provides us with many tools to support you if needle acupuncture is not right for you.
At Rosefinch Health, we specialize in providing acupuncture for a few specific areas. First, we have extensive experience with acupuncture for fertility. We can support those building their families with timed intercourse or alongside assisted reproductive treatments like In Vitro Fertilization, Egg Freezing, Frozen Embryo Transfer, and Intrauterine Insemination. We can adjust our treatments to focus on eggs, the womb, or sperm. For pelvic pain, we help people suffering with pain due to Endometriosis, Genital Pain, Vulvodynia or Vestibulodynia, Pelvic Myalgia (formerly vaginismus), Pudendal Neuralgia, and Bladder Pain Syndrome (interstitial cystitis). For Cancer Support, we focus on survivorship from the moment you are diagnosed, through your treatments, and beyond. And, for skin, we treat several dermatological issues including acne, scars, maturing skin, eczema, psoriasis, and more.
How does acupuncture help me?
In East Asian Medicine, we describe acupuncture’s function as regulating body functions or relieving pain by removing barriers or blockages to the flow of Qi (pronounced chee) within the acupuncture channels. There are 365 classical acupuncture points that follow 12 primary channels and 8 extra channels on the body. There are also an infinite number of extra points on the body as acupuncture, described as Ashi (pronounced ah-sher) points. Ashi points literally translate into English as “Ah, yes!” as in, yes, that is the place that hurts.
Does research explain how acupuncture works?
Currently, there are several proposed scientific models that help us understand the complex changes that happen within the body when we receive acupuncture. Research tells us that acupuncture helps your body release its own pain-killing endorphins and mood-boosting neurotransmitters. We also have found acupuncture can cause your blood vessels to dilate and increase blood flow to specific areas of the body. In another fascinating area of research, acupuncture helps specific body tissues to reorganize in response to acupuncture in two ways: within the brain (neuroplasticity) and fascia (loose connective tissue). While we see these specific changes through precise measures, we still aren’t sure exactly how acupuncture produces these responses.
Is acupuncture safe?
Yes, in competent hands. As a drug-free treatment, acupuncture is quite safe when provided by a trained and licensed provider like myself. The risk of infection has been virtually eliminated with single-use, sterile needles and clean needle technique. Most side effects are very mild with the most common side effects being a small drop of blood or minor bruise occurring in approximately 1 in every 15 patients. There is a small risk of puncturing a vital organ like the lung, but this type of injury is very rare, occurring in less than 1 in every 10,000 patients. A well-trained provider with good technique can avoid this kind of injury.