Clinic seeks to provide affordable acupuncture in a group setting

Jen Alberti and Caroline Adams took starkly different paths to get there, but they both ended up in the same place: helping people from all economic backgrounds heal with acupuncture.

The women are partners in Left Hand Community Acupuncture in Lafayette, offering acupuncture on a sliding payment scale in an environment in which people know they are not alone in their pain and discomfort.

Joining forces
Jen, from Quincy, Mass., just outside of Boston, has been a believer in acupuncture to treat her chronic seasonal allergies. She knew she wanted to provide the same relief to others and came to Boulder with her partner, Greg Williamson, to finish her degree at Southwest Acupuncture College in Boulder. The couple fell in love with Colorado and the mountains and decided to make it their home. “I feel like we’re a lot more active here,” Jen says, noting she and Greg didn’t have access to hiking trails and couldn’t bike to work in Boston. “I think it’s great.”

A native and lifelong resident of Colorado, Caroline became interested in health care after touring the Boulder Massage School in 2000. At the time, she was working as a librarian – researching engineering issues, but became dissatisfied with her job. She wanted to do something more fulfilling to help others. “I thought hard about (massage therapy), but the idea of being with someone and not talking to them seemed really odd to me,” she says. The mother of two – Zoe, 7, and Charlie, 5 – attended an open house at Southwest Acupuncture College after being laid off in 2004 and “got hooked.”

Knowing she wanted to offer community acupuncture and needed a partner, Caroline asked Jen to join her after observing not only Jen’s dependability and punctuality, but her compassion and knowledge. “I just knew from her character in school that she was someone I’d like to work with,” she says of Jen.

The women opened Left Hand in Lafayette in May because it was one area of Boulder County that didn’t have community acupuncture services. They are growing their practice to serve patients from the other area towns such as Erie, Louisville and Superior.

A community of healing
Community acupuncture means patients are not led to a private room where they get undressed and don a robe before undergoing an all-over body treatment. Instead, several patients may receive treatment at a time in the same room where Jen and Caroline focus on the elbows to the hands and the knees to the feet. So all most patients have to do is roll up their sleeves and pant legs.

The room is filled with white noise and music, and Caroline and Jen speak quietly and discreetly with each patient about their issues before beginning treatment. The patients usually respect the need to do the same, Caroline says.

By providing treatment in a community versus private environment, Jen and Caroline are able to keep costs down and provide acupuncture on a sliding scale, making it available to a wider section of the population.

“We’re set up for people who normally couldn’t afford $70 a treatment,” Jen says. A treatment at costs between $20 and $45, “which brings this medicine to so many more people who couldn’t afford it otherwise.”

Effectiveness in differences 
The partners both attained their master’s degree from Southwest Acupuncture College in Boulder, and they are both Nationally Board Certified and hold Master’s of Science in Oriental Medicine.

Both women practice a Japanese form of acupuncture that focuses on gentle needling techniques. However, Caroline says Jen’s experience makes her more effective with sports injuries, while Caroline is more of an internist. Jen says the beauty with acupuncture is any style of treatment results in the patient’s improvement.

However, Caroline says Jen’s experience makes her more effective with sports injuries, while Caroline is more of an internist. Both women practice a Japanese form of acupuncture that focuses on gentle needling techniques, though Jen’s internship work with Charles Chace makes her style somewhat different than Caroline’s. Jen says the beauty with acupuncture is any style of treatment results in the patient’s improvement.

Caroline took three semesters of Chinese at the University of Colorado as well as Asian art history and Buddhism classes, giving her a fondness for and insight into the culture of the Orient that helps her as an acupuncturist.

“There’s definitely a different mindset between Asia and the West,” she says. “It’s hard to come at Japanese and Chinese medicine from the West with an open mind. I was able to adopt that more readily.”

Left Hand Community Acupuncture is located in Old Town Lafayette at 409 S. Public Road, at the northwest corner of Public Road and Emma Street. Call (720) 248-8626 or e-mail info@LeftHandacu.com. Visit http://www.lefthandacu.com/ for more information.