Pain can change how you see yourself.

I began receiving treatment at seventeen while recovering from mononucleosis. I saw a wonderful practitioner in my neighborhood twice a week, and one day I arrived feeling completely like myself again. She took one look at me and said, “You seem great! I don’t need to treat you today. Come back when something is wrong.”

I never forgot that. She wasn’t interested in keeping me in treatment simply because I had been coming regularly. She wanted me to get well, return to my life, and know that I could come back when I needed her.

I continued to turn to acupuncture over the years. After I was diagnosed with endometriosis while living in New York, I decided to move to Los Angeles. There, I began receiving regular treatments from a practitioner whose care eventually inspired me to enroll in acupuncture school in 2018.

During my clinical training, I found myself especially drawn to working with patients with musculoskeletal injuries, neurological symptoms, and pain that had changed the way they moved. It became the focus of my clinical work, and now my practice.

I have lived with endometriosis pain for years. After surgery in 2021, I experienced nerve pain for several months and was left with significant numbness that remains today. When I sought help, my symptoms were minimized and my concerns were dismissed. That experience showed me how easily a patient can be left without answers, and it confirmed the kind of practitioner I wanted to be. I want my patients to know they have someone in their corner to help them find a realistic path forward.

Some pain is visible in the way a person walks or moves. Some pain is carried privately and goes unnoticed by everyone else. I know how important it is to be taken seriously when something in your body does not feel right. It has also reinforced something I learned from my first practitioner: treatment should help you move forward with your life. My hope is that my patients reach a point where they no longer need to see me regularly—and if something changes, they know they can return.