Old Treatments New Beginnings

Acupuncture Helps People Live a Healthy Life.

On a beautiful summer morning filled with bird song and sunlight, all the best of the season yawns before us: boating and beach walks, gardening, swimming, paddle boarding, sailing. But, at times, illness and pain can hinder or even halt some people from enjoying the things they love most in life. 

Just recently, at Osterville Acupuncture, owner and acupuncturist Gwen Carlton described such a scenario. Someone walked into her office with sciatic and knee pain, then after treatment, left without it. “It’s a privilege to do what I do,” says Carlton, “to watch people walk into my office grumpy and in pain, and walk out without pain and to be able to let their best selves shine through.”

The practice of acupuncture is over 5,000 years old and rooted in what is often referred to as Eastern medicine, which includes treatments such as herbal therapy, massage, meditation, and acupuncture. Many feel the approach is aimed at a whole person versus Western medicine’s focus on symptoms as the path for therapy and treatment. In more recent years, Carlton says, more and more people recognize acupuncture as a science-based treatment for illness and pain, as much as any other approach.

“When I first started on the Cape, my mentor Arlene Myers, had been an acupuncturist since the 80s and 90s, when acupuncture wasn’t as well known. She is a pioneer in my mind. She had to do the hard work of carving out the practice of acupuncture when no one in the community even knew what it was. Today I have the good fortune of being an acupuncturist when not only is it accepted and on trend, but doctors...