House calls always bring me the most unexpected and alarming assignments. The woman who had sounded so old and feeble over the phone was actually quite young — in her early thirties. She was in such a weakened state that she could barely walk to answer the door when I arrived.  “I can’t talk much because I’ll lose my breath,” she told me in a scarcely audible voice.

After doing the most brief patient intake, and after reviewing various inconclusive medical records provided by the patient, I palpated this young woman’s radial pulses and analyzed her tongue. She had become ill after a vacation in the tropics, and her health had steadily declined over a period of several months to a point in which she could no longer work or live independently. Terrified of receiving acupuncture, she had only contacted me as a “last resort” after several people had referred her to me. Her first and only experience with acupuncture was from a treatment she had received from a chiropractor, who, according to the patient, inserted several needles deeply along her spine, from the nape of her neck down to the sacrum.  The treatment resulted in the patient having extreme difficulty breathing and severe pain all over her body for days.

I utilized a gentle, non-insertion technique of acupuncture to provide some immediate relief for this woman, referred her to a physician, and went home amazed that any kind of medical professional would perform deep needling on such an emaciated, feeble patient.

Chiropractic acupuncture and medical acupuncture is an immediate public safety concern that must be illegalized.  Only licensed acupuncturists who have undertaken years of study at an accredited acupuncture graduate college should be approved to perform this invasive procedure.

Jamie Koonce, L.Ac.

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