I am a Kaiser Permanente member who has struggled with Restless Leg Syndrom (RLS) with various frequency since childhood.
As an adult, RLS became much more of an nightly struggle.
My Kaiser Permanente doctor prescribed medicine, which I took daily, along with an iron pill and a vitamin c pill. As a rule, these would bring relief. But those remedies started to wane, my doctor gave me a different medication, which didn't work. As I faced no real choice but to go back to the old medication, my Kaiser doctor surprised me by asking if I might "try acupuncture."
Years ago, a friend who was a local television news reporter who commented that he came to believe in acupuncture after a family pet with in severe pain, was treated with acupuncture. His comment that, with a human, you could attribute any relief to wishful thinking/mind-over-matter remedy. But with that pet, it would either work or not. And after being treated with acupuncture, the animal experienced enough relief to live out its years without the former symptoms of pain.
So, I guess that I was more open to the possibility of trying acupuncture. While Kaiser offers acupuncture, my daughter had done some research on acupuncture practitioners in Denver, and came up with Joanne.
My daughter's research was actually done as a way to encourage her mother to give acupuncture a chance. My wife has had experienced and increase in the frequency of intense "shock-like" facial pain due to trigeminal neuralgia. But because the meds given to her were working well, my daughter's research was never acted upon. However, after my Kaiser doctor suggested try acupuncture, we found that list and Joanne was one of a few at the top of my daughter's list.
It took about three sessions before relief came, but after the third time, I experienced relief from RLS pains in my ankles and lower legs. My wife saw the difference as I didn't get up from bed, go downstairs and try to distract myself until I was so tired that I would finally go to sleep.
The pain of RLS for me was bad. So, the thought of any imagined pain from acupuncture needles seemed like a reasonable thing to do. If it helped, the acupuncture process and any pain involved would be a welcomed swap. The actual pain from the needles were usually little more than the feeling of a prick on the skin. With few exceptions, the pain from the needles were not nearly as bad as I imagined. When it began working, after my third session, I couldn't be more surprised and more relieved. The fact that it worked, and that I had stopped taking the prescriptions and vitamins was amazing.
I have had to continue with acupuncture every 3 to 4 weeks, as some of the RLS symptoms would arise again. But over the months, my relief is extraordinary as Joanne applied her experience and skills to sustain my relief. I could not be more thankful. And the longer I went without pain, the more willing my wife was to have Joanna apply her skills to relieve the increasingly intense and frequent electric shock like pain that my wife experienced almost every late afternoon into the night.
The first sign that "something is different" was after my wife's first treatment by Joanne, as the point where the pain radiated out from one spot in her upper cheek area to an area below her lip. She thought that was strange, but continued to meet with Joanne. Whatever modest improvement that might have been experienced between my wife's first treatment through her sixth treatment, it was after her sixth treatment that the shocking pain in her face went away. Her prior inability to talk, difficulty washing her face, brushing her teeth, and other things that would set off the intense paid were, with Joanne's acupuncture treatments, mostly a thing of the past.
The only thing I am waiting on for my wife is for her neurologist to wean her off the medications that she had been taking, and that were not really helping her. I simply went off all my RLS meds and vitamins, while she is waiting on an upcoming appointment to have her neurologist take her off her current dosage.
I agree with the others who have written about Joanne's skill, expertise and her genuine care for them. I don't know about the other places that offer acupuncture, including what Kaiser offers me as a member. However, I am thrilled that my daughter's due diligence in researching various places and people who offer acupuncture treatments, lead my wife and I directly to Joanne Renna. As another reviewer said succinctly, I too "highly recommend her services, without reservation." read more
