Acupuncture for Fertility, Pregnancy, Women’s Health and Wellness in Oakland, CA

Come with me to Hand 🖐️ Feather 🪶 in Hangzhou, China 🇨🇳 for a scalp therapy treatment.

Hand Feather is a specialized scalp therapy clinic whose technicians communicate through sign language. The name itself reflects that; hand and feather, the lightness and precision of signing.

Scalp therapy combines deep cleansing, exfoliation, steam, and specialized massage techniques designed to stimulate circulation, support follicle health, and address scalp conditions. It is not a standard hair wash. It is a therapeutic treatment for the scalp itself.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine the scalp is traversed by several important meridians including the Du, Bladder, and Gallbladder channels. Stimulating the scalp stimulates these pathways, supporting circulation, reducing tension, and improving sleep, mood, and hair health.

After the treatment we were served a dessert soup of pear and tremella with goji berries and jujubes. Tremella mushroom is one of TCM’s most celebrated beauty ingredients, it deeply nourishes yin, plumps the skin by supporting the body’s natural hyaluronic acid production, and has been used for centuries as a longevity and skin health tonic. Pear clears heat and generates fluids. Goji berries nourish the Liver and brighten the complexion. A beauty treatment in a bowl served after a beauty treatment.

📍 City Pulse Acupuncture | Oakland CA
🔗 Link in bio

#scalptherapy #handfeather #hangzhou #TCM #chinesemedicine

Facial acupuncture. What it treats, how it works, and why the results last.

Before any needles touch your face, a full health intake is completed covering your menstrual cycle, sleep, digestion, energy, and emotional wellbeing, alongside pulse and tongue diagnosis. Body acupuncture comes first to address the constitutional patterns driving your skin health. Facial needles come last.

The cosmetic results are real: improved skin tone, reduction in fine lines and puffiness, lifted and firmed facial muscles, and a clearer complexion. But they are downstream of the internal work. That is what makes this treatment different from anything else you will try for your skin.

Swipe through for the full breakdown of what facial acupuncture is, how it works, what to expect, and what it treats.

Facial acupuncture is available at City Pulse Acupuncture in Oakland.

📍 City Pulse Acupuncture | Oakland CA
🔗 Link in bio to book

#facialacupuncture #acupuncture #TCM #chinesemedicine #holisticskincare

Come with me to receive facial acupuncture in Hangzhou, China. 🇨🇳

We started with a computerized skin analysis that mapped the surface of my skin and identified exactly what needed to be addressed before a single needle was placed. Then came the intake with Dr. Li. Her skin was exceptional by the way.

Facial acupuncture is for fine lines, loss of muscle tone, hormonal acne, puffiness, and dullness. But it is not a one size fits all treatment. Dr. Li assessed my constitution through pulse and tongue diagnosis first and built the entire treatment around what she found.

Body needles came before anything touched my face. The facial needles came last, stimulating collagen and elastin production, improving circulation, and releasing the muscle tension that contributes to lines and sagging.

Your skin is telling you something. Facial acupuncture listens to the whole story.

Facial acupuncture is available at City Pulse Acupuncture in Oakland.
🔗 Link in bio to book.

#facialacupuncture #acupuncture #TCM #chinesemedicine #hangzhou

Ten days in Hangzhou. Every meal was medicine.

Not in a metaphorical sense. In a literal, here-is-the-herb-and-here-is-what-it-does sense.

From ginseng infused noodles to black chicken soup with cordyceps to a hot pot broth that was essentially a clinical formula, food and medicine are not separate categories in Traditional Chinese Medicine. They never have been.

Swipe through for the full breakdown of what I ate in Hangzhou and what each ingredient was actually doing.

📍 City Pulse Acupuncture | Oakland CA
🔗 Link in bio to book

#TCM #chinesemedicine #foodasmedicine #hangzhou #china #acupuncture #herbalmedicine

Moxibustion. What it is. How it works. And why it has been used in Traditional Chinese Medicine for over 3,000 years.

After sharing the ginger moxibustion reel from Dr. Feng Ninghan's clinic in Hangzhou yesterday, I wanted to go deeper on what moxibustion actually is, because it is one of the most powerful and most underexplained tools in this medicine.

Moxibustion involves burning dried mugwort near or on specific acupuncture points to warm the channels, move stagnation, strengthen yang qi, and support the body's vital energy. It comes in several forms, moxa sticks, cones, on needles, on ginger 🫚 , each with specific clinical applications.

Research has shown it can improve uterine blood flow, regulate hormonal function, reduce inflammation, support immune function, and even help turn a breech baby. It is warm, aromatic, deeply relaxing, and one of my patients' favorite parts of their treatment.

Swipe through for the full breakdown, the different forms, what it treats, and what to expect.

Moxibustion is available at City Pulse Acupuncture in Oakland.

📍 City Pulse Acupuncture | Oakland CA
🔗 Link in bio to book

#moxibustion #TCM #chinesemedicine #acupuncture #moxa #fertility

Come with me to the clinic of Dr. Feng Ninghan in Hangzhou, China 🇨🇳.

What you are seeing is ginger 🫚 moxibustion, one of the oldest techniques in Traditional Chinese Medicine. Fresh ginger 🫚 grated and packed directly over acupuncture needles. Moxa shaped and placed on top. Lit. The heat travels through the ginger 🫚 and into the tissue, warming the channels, moving stagnation, dispersing cold and damp from the body.

The ginger 🫚 is not just a conductor. It is medicine in its own right: anti-inflammatory, deeply warming, and moving. Together with moxa it creates a depth of heat that penetrates in a way nothing else can replicate.

The patients receiving this treatment? Unbothered. Relaxed. Actively scrolling.

This is what medicine looks like when it is simply part of life.

📍 City Pulse Acupuncture | Oakland, CA
⛓️‍💥 Link in bio to book


#moxibustion #gingermoxibustion #TCM #chinesemedicine #hangzhou

Your morning smoothie might be working against you.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine the Spleen is the root of digestion, the system responsible for transforming everything you eat and drink into qi and Blood. Energy. Mental clarity. Hormonal health. Immune function. All of it starts here.

And the thing that weakens the Spleen most consistently? Cold food and raw food consumed first thing in the morning when your digestive fire is just waking up.

Cold food genuinely slows gastric motility, reduces digestive enzyme activity, and impairs nutrient absorption. TCM knew this thousands of years before the research caught up.

Swipe through for the full breakdown, what the Spleen actually is, what weakens it, and what to eat instead.

📍 City Pulse Acupuncture | Oakland CA
🔗 Link in bio to book

#TCM #chinesemedicine #spleen #digestivehealth #foodasmedicine

Seven mornings in Hangzhou. Seven breakfasts 🍱 that changed how I think about food.

Every morning a rotating bento arrived, warm soup, a hard boiled egg, dumplings or bao, a small protein, sweet potato, corn, lotus, fresh fruit, broccoli. Nothing cold. Nothing frozen.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine the Spleen is the root of digestion and the source of qi and Blood. Cold food injures the Spleen. Warming foods protect it. Fiber supports it. Protein nourishes it. Seasonal fruit balances it.

This was not a special diet. This was just breakfast. At a hotel. In a city where food as medicine is not a wellness trend, it is simply how life works.

I have been practicing TCM for 15 years. And somehow seven hotel breakfasts in Hangzhou taught me something.

📍 City Pulse Acupuncture | Oakland CA
⛓️‍💥 Link in bio to book

#TCM #chinesemedicine #foodasmedicine #hangzhou #china

Standard acupuncture needles can do a lot. But there are things they simply cannot reach.

Acupotomy (小针刀) uses a small flat needle-knife to mechanically release soft tissue adhesions, scar tissue, and fascial restrictions. The structural barriers standard needles cannot address. Used for cervical spondylosis, lumbar disc herniation, frozen shoulder, chronic tendonitis, plantar fasciitis, and knee conditions.

What struck me observing Dr. Wan Quan Qing in Hangzhou was how complete the protocol was. Before the procedure a prescription for lidocaine. After the procedure a prescription for Chinese herbs. Western pain management and Traditional Chinese Medicine working together in every single appointment.

For those following the recent science on the interstitium, acupotomy sits directly at that intersection. TCM practitioners have understood the clinical significance of fascial tissue for centuries. Western anatomy is catching up.

Swipe through for the full breakdown.

📍 City Pulse Acupuncture | Oakland CA
🔗 Link in bio to book

#acupotomy #TCM #chinesemedicine #hangzhou #chronicpain #fascia #interstitium #acupuncture #needleknife #oaklandacupuncture

Acupotomy blends traditional acupuncture with a small flat needle-knife about half a millimeter wide. It is inserted into acupoints and tender areas to mechanically release soft tissue adhesions, scar tissue, and fascial restrictions, the things standard acupuncture needles simply cannot reach.

The practitioner is Dr. Wan Quan Qing, Chief Physician, Professor, and Director of the Acupotomy Professional Committee of the Zhejiang Acupuncture and Moxibustion Society. Patients travel from distant provinces to see him.

They walk in in pain. They walk out without it.
Pain is not my specialty. But I left that room inspired and more convinced than ever that this medicine is capable of things Western medicine has barely begun to understand.

📍 City Pulse Acupuncture Oakland CA
⛓️‍💥 Link in bio to book

#acupotomy #TCM #chinesemedicine #hangzhou #china