Starting immediately, you can view and schedule your appointments online.

This online system has many advantages. You will be able to schedule, change, or check appointments any time, 24 hours a day. You can put yourself on the waiting list for days that have booked up. The system also allows you to receive automatic appointment confirmations and reminder emails.

This new system replaces the Invisible Receptionist for scheduling. If you don’t feel comfortable scheduling yourself online, you can still always call the office or stop in during business hours to schedule an appointment. We will also do reminder calls for anyone who wants one.

Here’s how to schedule:
Go to our website www.riveracupuncture.com
Click the “Book an Appointment” icon.
Select a service (new patient visit or returning patient visit), then select the date on the calendar.
A list of available times will appear on the right. Scroll down to see all of the times.
Click on the time you want (any white slot is available).
Indicate if you are a new or returning user. New users will have to input their information, returning users (or if we have assigned you a login in the office) will have to log in.
Click “Finalize Appointment.”

In your account under “Appointments” you can view upcoming appointments or your appointment history.

We hope this will be convenient for everyone. If you have any questions, please call us at (508) 890-8899.

One of the founding members of the community acupuncture movement, Lisa Rohleder, was recently interviewed by Acutake.com. The whole interview is great, so I highly suggest you read the entire article. Below is an excerpt, where Lisa answers the question, “[I]s community acupuncture… as clinically effective as private practice?

“I have been an acupuncturist for 16 years, and as far as I can tell, all forms of acupuncture work equally well—community acupuncture, private acupuncture, and all the various traditions and styles of practice. In fact, as we’ve seen with many recent studies, acupuncture is so powerful that even sham acupuncture works! What makes community acupuncture most effective is its accessibility.

Acupuncture works beautifully for lots of conditions, but it rarely works fast. That is the trade off you get for something that is so gentle and non-toxic. There are plenty of instances of dramatic outcomes from acupuncture, but you should not go into it expecting that. A more realistic expectation is that it will work gradually over time. With that in mind, you really want to think about not just how to get an acupuncture treatment but how to get a complete course of treatment.

A lot of people can scrape together $75 for one treatment, but not $750 for a course of 10 treatments. Under the conventional private-practice model, even if people can come up with enough money to get acupuncture for a while, the minute they are barely better enough to stop, they do. Maintenance treatments, the ones that take place after the original condition has subsided, are what prevent the same problems from coming back. Acupuncture is preventative, but only when administered regularly.”

Chances are, you are familiar with the term sciatica— leg pain along the pathway of the sciatic nerve– maybe you or someone you know suffers from it. Sciatica is a very common symptom seen in acupuncture practices, sometimes accompanied by low back pain, sometimes on its own.

Sciatica can be caused by many different underlying conditions, including muscle spasm, herniated discs, and narrowing of the spinal column. It also has many varied presentations. Some people feel pain, which can be aching, stabbing, or burning. Other people only feel tingling or numbness in the area. The sensation can be in the hip or buttocks and can radiate down the leg into the thigh or even all the way down to the toes. It can go down the back, side, or front of the leg, and it can even skip one part of the leg and reappear in another part.

Most acupuncturists will be familiar with treating sciatica in its many presentations. If you are coming in for treatment, it is important for you to describe the exact location of the pain/sensation, so that the acupuncturist knows what pathways are involved.

While some acupuncturists will treat sciatica by directly inserting a needle into the low back, buttocks, or other area of pain, in community acupuncture practices we usually treat sciatica using points on the hands, arms, legs, and feet. This allows you to remain clothed and relaxed during the treatment.

This distal (away from the site of the pain) treatment can produce some really great results. So, if you know someone who is suffering from sciatica, please send them over. I love to help people get out of pain!