Rupesh Harding Acupuncture

Thank you for your patience.

Now that the lockdown is being eased, we finally have the go ahead from the British Acupuncture Council to resume some treatments. They have been very helpful in putting together guidelines for safe treatment in these times.

From the 4th of July I should be back to treating all clients but still with the following precautions in place.

When you book a treatment, I will be asking you whether you have any signs or symptoms of a current respiratory infection & your possible exposure to it.

I will also carry out the bulk of your consultation around your main complaint over the phone. I will look at your tongue either via a selfie (for this you will need to take a picture of your tongue under natural light, by a window for example) or perhaps we can do a video call on What’s App.

The cleaning I am having to do between clients will be more intensive, as a result the interval between clients will be longer. The clinic has been rearranged to help maintain social distancing so far as possible & make cleaning between clients straight forward.

I ask you to come freshly bathed, consider using your own toilet before arriving & bring the minimum of extra baggage with you.

We will be aiming to avoid our clients meeting in the reception area where physical distancing is difficult, so I ask you not to arrive before your appointment time, enabling me to es**rt you swiftly through to my clinic room via a hand sanitising station. I will take your temperature with a non-contact thermometer on arrival. Where possible do not touch anything! All door handles will be sanitised before & after sessions.

Maintaining distance is obviously going to be difficult so in order to protect each other we will be wearing masks. I will supply you with a surgical disposable one. My mask protects you, your mask protects me.

I wrote this to my MP recently, someone suggested I posted it , so here it is!

James Cleverly MP

House of Commons

Dear Mr Cleverly,

I hope you are well & have not been affected by the malaise that has affected some members of the Cabinet.

I believe you are a friend of Boris Johnson. It has been worrying me that people who have suffered viral infection often suffer debilitating post viral symptoms such as fatigue, muscle aches & pains and particularly brain fog, especially if they fail to rest enough during convalescence before going back to work. As an Acupuncturist I see this on a regular basis in my clinic.

It has crossed my mind that this may be the case not just with Boris, but perhaps Dominic Cummings too. This might explain the curious inability to see the carnage that the lack of clear thinking over the matter of the damage that has been done to the government’s messaging concerning ‘Social Distancing’ through No 10’s dissembling & ongoing support for Mr Cummings.

As a true friend of Mr Johnson I believe you should bring your influence on him to bear & raise this issue with him.

Yours

Rupesh Harding

Summer is here! I sit writing this as temperature records fall throughout Europe. Warm, sunny weather makes many of us feel good. Overdoing the sunshine can also make us feel miserable…. I remember treating someone for heatstroke in the back of a Transit van at a festival once. She had been working as a cook at Madras Café, where I help out every year, raising funds for a small charity working with rural communities in India, particularly targeting women & the disabled. Headache & nausea were the main symptoms, half an hour of treatment brought her back to normal, enabling further enjoyment of the rest of the festival.

Just this morning I gave a fellow therapist a quick treatment for the scratchy throat, clogged nose & itchy eyes of hay fever. She was astonished at the rapid improvement to her symptoms from a few quick pricks with a needle or two. This continues a recent theme of head related problems; two different types of excruciating headache, a facial problem (trigeminal neuralgia) & someone presenting with acute cold sores.

The first case involved a client I have known virtually from the outset of my practice, more than 10 years ago. This person asked for help with an intractable ‘migraine’, after coming down with a viral infection, that was not responding to regular medication, the headache had been very intense for more than 36hrs preventing sleep or movement. After presenting at the Accident & Emergency department with little benefit & getting no relief, I was called to see if acupuncture could help her. She reported that the first treatment brought the pain down to manageable levels shortly after. The following day there were just the vestiges of the previous ache & after a third treatment she was fine.
The second head problem I was presented with was a man with cluster headache, this excruciatingly painful condition comes on without warning with a piercing, burning pain around the eye & sometimes into the face, it may last anything from 15 mins to several hours. They will often happen at the same time every day, & may occur several times in a day. Typically the cluster of headaches will last for 4-12 weeks before disappearing, perhaps only to reappear at the same time the following year or years later. Treatment consisted of three sessions close together in the first week. After the first he had no attack until two days later, when I saw him again. He had another attack the following day & then no attacks for three days. He had 6 treatments in a fortnight, by which time the cluster headaches had stopped.
When clients need to see me several times in quick succession I charge a much reduced fee for follow up sessions for two reasons; 1. To encourage people to come for as much treatment as is needed to make them better &
2. To make it more easily affordable for them.

Trigeminal neuralgia is a nerve pain that typically causes severe jolting, electrical type pain in the face, often going to the teeth & side of the face following the course of the trigeminal nerve, often triggered by touch, chewing or brushing the teeth. Just recently someone came to see me with this problem, she has responded well so far, needing less medication & having days with no pain at all, I would expect further treatment to make more difference.
She is pleased with the results so far & as a result brought her daughter in for emergency treatment for a chronic tonsil inflammation that doesn’t respond well to antibiotics, leaving her with a very sore throat, swollen glands & difficulty moving her neck. 45 minutes on my couch made her feel much better with reduced sore throat & much free-er neck movement.
A young mother was referred by another of my clients, she was run down & was getting repeated cold sores around her mouth, one session reduced the burning sensation from two lip sores rapidly, by the second treatment a few days later they had crusted over & she was feeling much more relaxed.

Don’t make acupuncture your last resort!
Come & get a drug free treatment for your ailments.

Call Rupesh now for an appointment.

Tuesdays & Fridays by appointment in Halstead, or at Colchester Community Acupuncture on Mondays & Thursdays

I am going to be at the Colchester Festival of Rice & Spice this weekend. Come along with your musculo-skeletal problems & let me diagnose which muscles are dysfunctional and explain how acupuncture at Colchester Community Acupuncture can help you back to fitness.