Accidentally discovered during the boozy revelry of a Chinese pin factory’s New Year’s party, acupuncture has since developed into both a potent alternative medicine and popular celebrity Jeopardy! category. Today’s Groupon gives you a pain-free way to stay pain-free: for $39, you get a wellness package at Acupuncture Integration (a $120 total value). The package includes:
- A 20-30 minute new-patient consultation (a $50 value)
- A 40-minute acupuncture treatment and 20-30 minutes of therapeutic bodywork (a $70 value)
At Acupuncture Integration, licensed acupuncturist Jonathan Mates brings his international health-care experience and his acupuncture studies in Huangzhou, China, to bear on patients’ maladies. Mates, who specializes in sports medicine and pain management, initiates each new patient with a 20- to 30-minute consultation, during which clients share their concerns, histories, and sacks of bulk candy. In the ensuing 40-minute acupuncture session, hair-like needles penetrate the body at key junctures, easing pain and stress and helping prevent illness by stimulating endorphin production and circulation. Twenty minutes of therapeutic bodywork close clients’ wellness sessions, during which Mates kneads knotted musculatures with a unique fusion of shiatsu, deep-tissue, and craniosacral massage techniques, leaving ligaments loose enough to fold into a suitcase for cheap travel.
Acupuncture Integration
When a year of physical therapy failed to heal the neck injury Jonathan Mates sustained during a rugby match, he turned to acupuncture. Like 2,500 years worth of patients before him, Mates found that acupuncture swiftly relieved his symptoms.
Inspired, he enrolled at Five Branches University, an academy of Chinese medicine where he specialized in pain management and sports medicine. Even after graduating at the top of his class, however, Mates didn’t feel his education was complete. So he built a raft out of acupuncture needles and sailed to China, where he studied with acupuncturists and physicians. Upon returning to the United States, Mates spent more than 300 hours in orthopedics training at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
Today, Mates' specialties also include rotator-cuff injuries, neck injuries, and sciatica pain. These are part of a wide breadth of clinic services, including holistic-healing treatments such as cupping, herbal medicine, and massage.