Acupuncture & Chinese Medicine for Chronic & Complex Conditions
Not everything I treat hurts.
Pain and musculoskeletal problems are a large part of my
practice, but acupuncture isn't simply physical medicine
performed with needles.
Traditional Chinese medicine gives me a way to look at patterns across the whole body—digestion, sleep, energy, temperature, pain, headaches, bowel habits, stress, cognition and other symptoms that may seem unrelated when they're divided among different medical specialties.
Sometimes the person sitting across from me doesn't need another practitioner to look at one more body part.
They need someone to look at the pattern.
When you have more than one thing going on
Chronic and complex conditions rarely arrive neatly packaged.
You may have fatigue and digestive problems. Pain and poor sleep. Brain fog and headaches. You may have a diagnosed condition but still struggle with symptoms that aren't adequately controlled. Or you've been evaluated repeatedly and know what you don't have, but still don't feel well.
Chinese medicine approaches this differently from conventional medical diagnosis.
Instead of asking only, “What disease does this person have?” I'm also asking:
“What pattern is this person's body showing me?”
That doesn't replace your Western diagnosis or medical care. It gives me another framework through which to understand your symptoms and decide whether acupuncture, herbal medicine or both may be useful.
Dampness, Phlegm and Chinese Herbal Medicine
If you've spent much time around Chinese medicine, you've probably heard practitioners use words like dampness and phlegm in ways that sound very different from their everyday meanings.
These are traditional Chinese medicine concepts—not Western medical diagnoses.
In Chinese medicine, dampness describes a pattern I often see in people with chronic, complicated symptoms. It may show up through combinations of heaviness, fatigue, swelling or fluid retention, digestive problems, brain fog, aching, congestion, a feeling of sluggishness, or a thick tongue coating.
When dampness persists, Chinese medicine describes it as capable of becoming more entrenched and interfering with normal function in different parts of the body.
One of the things I find particularly useful about Chinese herbal medicine is the ability to treat these patterns more continuously than I can with a once-a-week acupuncture treatment.
Depending on the person, an herbal formula may be designed to drain dampness, transform phlegm, support digestion, move stagnation or strengthen systems that aren't functioning efficiently according to Chinese medical diagnosis.
Two people with the same Western diagnosis may therefore receive completely different formulas.
And two people with completely different diagnoses may sometimes show remarkably similar Chinese medicine patterns.
That's one of the things I love about this medicine.
Neurological Conditions
My training also includes additional study in neurological acupuncture and nervous-system disorders.
I work with some patients who have neurological diagnoses or are recovering from neurological events, including people living with Parkinson's disease, persistent symptoms following concussion, neuropathy and other neurological conditions.
In these situations, acupuncture is supportive care, not a replacement for a neurologist, physical therapy, medication or other necessary medical treatment.
The goals depend entirely on the person.
We may be working with pain or stiffness. Sleep. Headaches. Muscle function. Stress. Digestive symptoms. Fatigue. Or simply trying to help someone function and feel as well as possible while living with a condition that acupuncture isn't going to make disappear.
Sometimes improving one seemingly small thing can make the rest of the day considerably easier.
What about Long COVID and post-viral symptoms?
Some people don't bounce back normally after an illness.
They may be left with fatigue, brain fog, digestive changes, headaches, sleep problems, altered temperature regulation or a general feeling that their body hasn't returned to baseline.
Chinese medicine has a long history of thinking about what happens after an acute illness—when the infection itself has passed but the person hasn't completely recovered.
I approach these cases individually, using acupuncture, herbal medicine or a combination depending on the symptoms and the Chinese medicine pattern I see.
As with any persistent or changing symptoms, appropriate medical evaluation comes first. My role is to work alongside that care, not replace it.
Traditional medicine and modern medicine don't have to compete.
I practice traditional Chinese medicine in New York City in 2026.
I want to know what your bloodwork says. I want to know what your neurologist thinks. I want to know what medications you're taking and what diagnoses have already been considered.
And then I'm going to look at your tongue.
Those things aren't contradictory to me.
They're different sources of information about the same human being.
Sometimes acupuncture is the most useful tool I have. Sometimes herbs are more important. Often I use both. And sometimes what you need is something outside my scope, in which case I'll tell you that too.
The point isn't to fit every symptom into either a Western or Chinese medicine box.
It's to figure out what might actually help.
Wondering whether Chinese medicine makes sense for what you're dealing with?
Complex cases are, by definition, difficult to explain in a booking form.
You don't need to figure out beforehand whether what you're experiencing “counts” as something I treat.
Book an Appointment or Free 15-Minute Consultation:
AB Acupuncture is located inside W72 Wellness at 118 West 72nd Street, between Columbus Avenue and Broadway, on Manhattan's Upper West Side.