Hair-fine, single-use needles at points along the body’s channels — often a long way from the spot that hurts. A hand point for a headache. A leg point for a back that has locked up. Often with a gentle electrical pulse added to the needles.

Watercolour of a woman lying face down on a treatment table, resting on a pillow, with fine acupuncture needles standing in her upper back.

What we use it for

Back & neck pain

Lower back, sciatica, disc-related pain

Migraines & headaches

Chronic and tension-related

Neuropathy

Nerve pain, numbness, tingling

Arthritis & joint pain

Knees, hips, shoulders, hands

What a session is like

We talk first

Where it hurts and what you’ve tried.

The needles

You lie down in loose clothes. Most feel a dull warmth, not a prick.
Sometimes

A gentle pulse

A light current on a few of the needles.

Resting

You rest a while, then they come out.
More about the gentle pulse (electroacupuncture)

A gentle electrical pulse runs between a few of the needles while you rest, keeping the stimulation steady. We tend to use it for long-standing pain and for nerve pain, numbness and tingling.

It feels like a light tapping or buzzing, and we turn it down whenever you say. There is nothing extra to book.

Not used if you have a pacemaker or other implanted device, or are pregnant — we needle by hand instead.

What the research says

Acupuncture is also one of the most closely studied treatments for chronic pain. The largest analysis to date, pooling 39 trials and 20,827 patients, found acupuncture helped back and neck pain, osteoarthritis, chronic headache and shoulder pain — and most of the improvement was still there a year after treatment stopped.

Vickers AJ, et al. Acupuncture for chronic pain: update of an individual patient data meta-analysis. The Journal of Pain, 2018.

Book a visit

Tell us what hurts and we’ll work out where the needles go.