Decided to give Stephen a try due to the rave reviews he has on Southern Marin Mothers Club and the various awards he's won in the community as the "best of...".
On initial meeting he came across as quite serious, somewhat reserved and uber business-like/professional. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, and I'm sure this persona instills confidence in many of his clients, but I tend to prefer establishing a more personal rapport with my practitioners, which lets you see their true personality and who they really are. I view it as a partnership, vs. a Teacher/learner relationship or a superior/underling relationship. (I know many folks like their practitioners or physicians on a pedestal of elevated knowledge and superiority - I don't go for that.)
He warmed up a bit on subsequent visits, but always maintained a certain level of aloofness that I associate with old school conventional medical practitioners. He doesn't freely describe his impressions and findings as you go along - I found I had to initiate the conversations about what he was finding with his assessments.
After seeing him for several weeks, two main issues came up for me that made me decide to return to my previous practitioner...
1. His needle technique hurts! Granted, I'm pretty wimpy, but I've been to four other TCM practitioners and have never had the needles hurt in this manner. Essentially out of 8-12 needles per session, only 1-2 would go in with a minimal amount of pain & the rest really hurt. Many of the sites would bleed more than just a tiny drop after needle removal and again, this has not been common in my experience. I found myself dreading appointments because of my anticipation of pain with the needles.
2. His recommended herb changes were not helping me feel better. He had recommended a different course of herbs than my previous LAc, but I was not having improvement and was having issues keeping with the program due to side effects here and there from the various things. I was actually feeling worse and could no longer blame it on other things going on in my life, such as stress, etc. I began to suspect the herbs.
All-in-all I decided to go back to my previous acupuncturist because I was feeling so lousy. Within just a few days of returning to Miki Shima and going back to Miki's recommended treatment plan I was feeling amazingly better!
For whatever reason Stephen and I just aren't a good fit. He seems a nice enough guy and tons of people love him, I dread telling him that I'm "breaking up" with him to go back to my previous acupuncturist, but hey - people get back together with their ex'es all the time, right? read more