Community Acupuncture Open, and Free, Next Week

Free needles are coming to Beekman and no, it's not what you think.

Pat Studley, a decades-long resident of Sleepy Hollow and retired actuary, is opening Hudson River Acupuncture. Assuming he gets his Certificate of Occupany from the Village on time, he plans to launch into business on Monday's Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday with a full week of free services and long hours.

The storefront on 95 Beekman Avenue bears little resemblance to its former role as an architect's office, with new walls forming several rooms of recliners, a leather chair-appointed waiting area, attractive globe lighting fixtures on dimmers, high ceilings, carpet and light-colored paint. After some hunting around the villages, Studley's happy to have found a first-floor storefront, at a reasonable price, in a place with foot traffic. Here, Studley hopes to gain a fast following for his contemporary twist on this ancient practice.  

After the initial free week, it will be time for customers to start paying – but not much. Hudson River will be applying the approachable community-based model made popular in progressive places like Portland, Oregon. Instead of having clients pay the high standard fee for lying in a private room on a table, Studley will only charge $20 to treat multiple people at once in a room, as many as six clients per hour.

“Going to school, I was under the impression that acupuncture should be more affordable than western medicine," Studley said. "We're not doctors. Needles and herbs are really cheap. But most people do better with a number of treatments. And if you're charging $75 to $100 per treatment, it adds up.”

Typically, insurance won't cover this type of “alternative” service and what should be more accessible is often not an option for people who can't afford to pay on their own. Studley is charging something comparible to a co-pay. People who might not otherwise be well-served by the medical system, can afford to come back repeatedly and potentially see a real improvement in their health.

Studley, who received the BA/MA degree necessary to be a certified practitioner in the field (he graduated from Manhattan's Pacific College of Oriental Medicine in 2008), itemized the different scientific theories behind why acupuncture, practiced for thousands of years, seems to work so well for any number of ailments. Yet any solid answer remains “very mysterious.”

He talked of the body's electromagnetism – “imagine a current running through salt water” – and speculated how a stainless steal needle must impact this. There's also the extreme and exaggerated way our body tends to react to stress. “For some reason, the inflammatory response to stress is to overreact,” he said. A minor burn produces much pain, as an injured ankle can create huge swelling. So to with acupuncture needles: piercing some cells causes “microdamage that calls in a big healing response.”

And for those who think it's all placebo, Studley doesn't discount that possibility either. “The only real healing done is by you yourself,” he said. “The body knows how to heal itself but sometimes it has to be reminded.”

When people are together in the treatment room as planned there won't be the traditional “needles all over your back” approach, but rather targeting certain easily-accessible areas on fully clothed patients – from the elbows and knees down, the real “hot spots” for acupuncture. “It's all about the channels' flow and the strongest, most sensitive points are at the end of the channels,” Studley said. A needle in your foot, for instance, can cure a headache. He likened the effect of these tiny (painless) needle insertions, to “the snap of a whip: a very small movement can have a very big impact.”

The "intake" process will be fast and hushed, as Studley assesses what the underlying problem is, applying techniques not wholly different from his background problem-solving for Met-Life insurance. “You take in the whole constellation of signs and symptoms and look quantitively, holistically, then they are quite easy to treat.”

Acupuncture has been shown to provide measured pain reduction for internal disorders like digestion, headaches, fertility problems; to aid with chronic disorders (“things western medicine doesn't know what to do with”) like post-stroke rehabilitation, post-cancer treatments, strengthening the immune system. Also, it is popularly used to reduce regular stress, the cause of many bodily evils.

“Imagine a pill that could cure many different diseases, would have some positive benefit with no negative side effects at all, the ingredients are cheap, it's not addictive, you can stop whenever you want, and even healthy people can use it and feel better,” Studley said.

He thinks of his competition as not the other acupuncturists in the area, but “the .” People go there for their stress, when they could opt for a healthier lifestyle, he said, adding that he still looked forward to going there for a drink himself. Fitting in with the healthly lifestyle theme, Studley hopes to get approval for a bike rack in front, so he too can ride to work.

Hudson River Acupuncture: 914-909-6360, first week as of Monday, January 16 (to be confirmed), will be very open and all treatments free. Regular hours starting January 24 is: Tues. 10-4, Wed. 10-4, Thurs. 10-2, Fri. 1-7, and Sat. 1-4. Closed on Sunday and Monday. As demand increases, so to will the hours and staff. Lisa Knight, administrative assistant, will be there at the front desk to greet you.