Success Stories

Some of the stories and experiences with my patients.

Name: Lauren
Primary challenge: Infertility

My husband and I conceived our first child via IUI and IVF. When we started thinking about having a second child, I was afraid to embark on another potentially long and lonely journey. I wasn’t sure my stress levels could handle another round. And because I never got a specific diagnosis of infertility, I wasn’t convinced it was entirely necessary. I wanted to try a gentler, less invasive approach to conceiving this time.

That being said, the experience I had with my first pregnancy had left me with a lot of anxiety, which made me reluctant to even try acupuncture and Chinese medicine. I also had a demanding job, and I just wasn’t sure that trying a non-Western medicine approach was worth my time and energy. I was completely wrong.

Sarah is a deeply compassionate, sensitive and caring person. She was completely present in each of our sessions. She listened to my background, and offered suggestions with an optimistic, holistic, and kind approach. Once I got pregnant, Sarah was extremely supportive and patient through each step of the pregnancy. She was very responsive in keeping in touch and always offered comforting, caring, and insightful advice. She changed my entire perspective on trying to conceive and being pregnant.

Sarah’s perspective put me at ease. It quieted my anxiety. It helped me have faith that there was hope for a different path. I’m forever grateful for her support at such a vulnerable point in my life.

Name: Emily
Primary complaint: Migraines

Before working with Sarah, migraines—and the pain they carried with them—felt like my constant companion.

I saw neurologists, changed my diet, got acupuncture and took herbs. I worked out, slept eight hours a night, took time off, got out of problematic relationships. Almost nothing made any noticeable difference, and so I gave up, thinking that mine was a body destined to experience pain, and that my energy could be spent either focused on the pain or enjoying the pain-free moments. I taught myself to ignore it.

Research shows that individuals who experience a trauma will use whatever resources are available to them to escape the pain of that trauma. If they are unsuccessful in these attempts and the trauma occurs again, most often they will do nothing to stop or change the trauma from happening; their new normal includes trauma and pain. My normal was pain. Having found nothing to alleviate that, I stopped noticing the pain. It worked for a little while.

When I could no longer discern between painful and pain-free periods of time, when everything hurt all of the time, I felt a diminishing: as if every day, I was less there. I wasn’t hurting as much as vanishing, and I was almost gone. I sought out a holistic therapist. On my second visit she stopped the conversation and said – I can’t help you, because you’re in physical pain almost all of the time. She recommended that I see Sarah.

At the time, I felt bereft of language in regard to my body—there are few words to adequately describe pain. The thought of going to see another practitioner and trying to describe my migraines was not something I wanted to do. I was also concerned about the pain of having needles inserted.

But I made an appointment. I filled out some paperwork, and Sarah and I chatted on the phone. She seemed to get a sense of what was going on without my explanation. I can only describe the feeling after my first visit with Sarah as a clearing away. There was a buoyancy and a new sense of ease in my body. I kept bracing for my next big headache, but it didn’t happen. I started to notice the difference between a good and a bad feeling and what might cause those feelings. A small thing, but this was not available to me before Sarah. She helped me regain my ability to notice my body.

With Sarah a needle has never been painful. Her treatments have always felt enriching; never something that has to be endured. I show up to Sarah’s office in all states of disarray, but I never feel judged or scolded in any way. So much more happens in our sessions than just receiving acupuncture. Sarah is so subtly perceptive and expressive. She’s incredibly gifted and funny. It’s a pleasure to be known by her.

Perhaps the simplicity of what I experienced in my work with Sarah belittles the drama of the shift. Now I realize that I have a renewable resource somewhere inside that works to maintain the good functioning of my body. I no longer have to knock myself out just to exist.

Now I pay attention and listen to what my body is asking. I still have no idea what it’s saying sometimes—at those moments, I book an appointment with Sarah. She adjusts me, and my body then regulates itself subtly, drastically, immediately. It heals on its own, while I keep trying to learn its language better. I still get ill; I even get headaches occasionally, but the feeling that I am destined to be in pain is gone.

Until my therapist’s direct recommendation to see Sarah, I’d given up believing that there was another way to be. But there is. Sarah provided my body and spirit with the means to make this shift.