We're an acupuncture and functional medicine clinic in downtown Seattle. We've been around since 2008. Our work blends traditional Chinese medicine with modern functional medicine, and we treat everything from chronic pain and digestive issues to hormonal patterns, fertility, autoimmune conditions, and the long tail of 'something is off and no one can figure out what.' We specialize in the complex, chronic, and 'mystery' cases that other clinics often punt on.

What makes you different from other acupuncture clinics?

Three things. First, we treat the whole person, not just the symptom — every plan is customized, no cookie-cutter protocols. Second, we blend Chinese medicine with functional medicine, lab work, modern technology, and clinical reasoning that most acupuncture clinics don't do. Third, we say what we mean. We'll tell you straight up if we think we can help, if we think you'd be better served somewhere else, or if a particular intervention isn't right for you yet. We're not here to upsell you — we're here to actually fix what's going on.

Where is GoodMedizen located?

We're at 509 Olive Way, Suite 1401, in downtown Seattle, WA 98101. The Medical Dental Building, on the corner of Olive Way and 6th Ave. The primary entrance is on Olive Way next to Go Fitness and Cherry Street Coffee. Take the elevator to the 14th floor.

Yes. Every provider at GoodMedizen is a Licensed Acupuncturist (L.Ac.) with a Master's degree in Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine, plus extensive continuing education. We're nationally board certified and licensed by the State of Washington.

What conditions do you treat?

A lot. Pain (chronic and acute), digestive issues, hormonal imbalances, fertility, anxiety and depression, sleep problems, allergies, autoimmune conditions, fatigue, post-surgical recovery, headaches and migraines, neurological conditions, skin conditions, and the long tail of 'something is off and no one can figure out what.' Acupuncture and TCM are whole systems of medicine — we're always looking at the whole body, working on restoration of function to help your body perform the duties it's supposed to.

Do you take my insurance?

We're in-network with most major Seattle-area carriers including Premera, Regence, Aetna, Cigna, First Choice Health, Kaiser PPO, Molina, and several others. We can verify your specific benefits before your first visit so there are no surprises — text us your insurance info or fill out the form on our website and we'll run a benefits check for you.

What if you don't take my insurance?

We're preferred providers for most insurance plans in Washington State. We can still see you on a self-pay basis at our standard or member rates. If you have an FSA or HSA, you can typically use those. We can also provide a superbill that you can submit to your insurance for potential out-of-network reimbursement, depending on your plan.

How much will it cost me?

It depends on your insurance plan, your deductible status, and what services you receive. We'll always run a benefits check before your first visit and tell you what to expect — copay, deductible, coinsurance, the whole picture. No surprise bills.

How do GoodMedizen memberships work?

Standard ($99/mo) is for fairly straightforward cases — member-rate acupuncture, 10% tier discount, office-visit access to your practitioner, 60-minute appointment times that include a few modalities. Premium ($179/mo) adds weekly group Q&A access for people who want more clinical guidance between visits, with a 15% discount on everything. Functional ($397/mo) is the full toolkit — monthly functional medicine visits, quarterly lab review including specialty labs, dedicated messaging access with 24-hour return, 80-minute appointments for more modality work, and 20% off acupuncture, services, and supplements. Memberships are month-to-month and you can cancel anytime.

What's the difference between a la carte and a membership?

A la carte is pay-as-you-go — you pay full rate for each visit and service. Memberships give you a monthly rate that includes longer visits, member pricing on every service and supplement, modalities included in your appointment time, and varying levels of provider access depending on tier. Memberships are designed for people who plan to use them — if you'll be in regularly, they save you significant money over a la carte.

Does acupuncture hurt?

The needles we use are very small — about the width of a strand of hair — and most people do very well with them. They are still needles, so there might be a spot here or there that's a little sharp. If something feels sharp, it should go away within a moment or two. Some points, especially in the hands, can have a deep, dull, achy quality. That ache is actually a good thing, so long as you can rest comfortably with it. Our number one goal is that you are comfortable with our treatments.

How many acupuncture sessions will I need?

What we're trying to do in the beginning is get the attention of your immune system, so we front-load treatments 2–3 times a week for typically the first 2–3 weeks. If you aren't seeing significant change by visit 3, then we dig deeper. The ultimate goal is quarterly maintenance visits — 4 times a year at season change. The goal is to limit the amount of intervention you'll ever need.

How long until I feel better from acupuncture?

Most patients notice benefit from acupuncture at their very first visit, although the first benefits noticed can be nebulous — feeling more relaxed, sleeping better, having more energy. We want to start seeing explicit change around visit 3, and significant improvement around visits 4–6. We front-load treatments to get the attention of your immune system, then slow down.

Is acupuncture safe during pregnancy?

Yes — and incredibly helpful. Acupuncture is safe throughout pregnancy when performed by a trained practitioner, and it can help with morning sickness, back pain, sleep, anxiety, breech presentation, labor preparation, and postpartum recovery. It's often one of the only things a pregnant person can do for stubborn aches and pains, as many standard treatments and medications are contraindicated.

Can children get acupuncture?

Yes. We treat kids of all ages, including infants for things like reflux and sleep disturbances. For younger children we often use non-needle techniques (shonishin, gentle bodywork, magnets, ear seeds) that get the same effect without the needles. By age 8–10, most kids are curious about the needles and actually lead us to start using them.

Is dry needling the same as acupuncture?

Dry needling is a form of acupuncture — so all dry needling is acupuncture, but not all acupuncture is dry needling. Acupuncture is a complete medical system with upwards of 5,000 years of clinical refinement. Acupuncturists train for 3–4 years at master's or doctorate level and complete national board exams. An acupuncturist needs 2,000–4,000 hours of training to insert needles. A physical therapist can be certified to do dry needling after 50–100 hours. That's the practical difference.

What is functional medicine and how is it different from going to my regular doctor?

Conventional medicine is excellent at acute care, surgery, and managing established disease. It's less designed for the chronic, complex, multi-system stuff — the gut/hormone/inflammation/fatigue tangles where every specialist sends you to a different specialist. Functional medicine zooms out, looks at how your systems interact, and uses targeted labs and interventions to address the upstream causes. We work alongside your conventional providers, not in place of them.

How long does functional medicine take to work?

Most people start feeling shifts within 4–6 weeks of starting a personalized protocol. Bigger structural changes — restoring gut function, rebalancing hormones, healing chronic inflammation — usually take 3–6 months of consistent work. Functional medicine is iterative: we run labs, build a protocol, retest, refine. It's not a quick fix; it's a rebuild.

How do I know if I need detox?

Common signs include chronic fatigue, brain fog, unexplained inflammation, hormonal disruption, chemical sensitivity, mold exposure history, dental amalgam history, occupational exposures, autoimmune patterns that aren't responding to other care, and a long history of 'doing everything right' without feeling right. We start with a thorough intake and (when indicated) testing to figure out whether toxic burden is actually the issue.

Why doesn't GoodMedizen sell a 30-day detox kit?

Because they don't work, and some of them are dangerous. Pre-packaged detox kits don't account for your specific exposure history, your drainage capacity, your genetic detox pathways, your medication situation, or your nutrient status. They mobilize toxins without first making sure your exits are open — which is exactly how detox protocols cause harm. Real detox is individual. We don't shortcut it because we've seen what happens when people do.

How much does microneedling cost at GoodMedizen?

Microneedling at GoodMedizen is a flat $619 per session and is never discounted. Exosomes are expensive — really expensive — and they're the difference between 'okay' results and exceptional ones. Cheap microneedling without quality exosomes is a fundamentally different treatment. We don't compromise on the materials.

How many microneedling sessions will I need?

Most people see significant results from a series of 3 sessions spaced 4–6 weeks apart, with maintenance every 6–12 months after. Severe scarring or significant sun damage may benefit from a series of 4–6 sessions.

What should I expect at my first acupuncture visit?

Your first visit is longer than a typical follow-up — usually 75–90 minutes — because we're doing a thorough intake. We'll go through your health history, current medications and supplements, lifestyle, and what brought you in. Then we'll do a TCM diagnostic exam (pulse, tongue, palpation) and build your initial treatment plan. The treatment itself is included in this first visit.

How do I book an appointment at GoodMedizen?

Online at goodmedizen.com/schedule-now — it's the fastest way and shows real-time availability. You can also text 206-402-3813 if you'd rather book that way or have a specific timing question.

What's the fastest way to reach GoodMedizen?

Text 206-402-3813. We're a busy clinic and during clinic hours we're with patients, hands-on, often literally holding needles. We can't pick up the phone in real time — but we can absolutely respond to a text between patients. Texting is by far the fastest way to get a response from us.

What Are the Benefits of Combining Acupuncture With Herbal Medicine?

2 days ago

5 min read

Acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine are usually sold as two services. In classical practice they were never two things — they were one system with two delivery routes, chosen according to what a case needed and how fast it needed it.

That distinction is worth understanding before you pay for either one, because the answer to should I do both is genuinely case-dependent, and any clinic that answers yes automatically is selling rather than assessing.

The two do different jobs

Acupuncture acts on regulation, and it acts quickly.

The measured effects cluster around the nervous system: modulation of pain signaling at the spinal and cortical level, shifts in autonomic balance toward parasympathetic tone, local changes in circulation and connective tissue at the site, and release of endogenous opioids and other neuropeptides. The evidence for chronic pain is among the stronger bodies of work in integrative medicine — an individual patient data meta-analysis of 39 trials and 20,827 patients found acupuncture superior to both sham and no-acupuncture control, with effects persisting at one year (Vickers et al., The Journal of Pain, 2018).

What acupuncture is good at: pain, sleep, anxiety, nausea, muscle tension, cycle symptoms — anything where the nervous system's handling of a signal is a meaningful part of the problem. It works within a session and accumulates over a course.

What it is less good at: sustaining a change between visits. The effect of a treatment decays. In a weekly schedule, there are six days where nothing is acting on the problem.

Herbal medicine acts on substrate, and it acts slowly.

A formula is a daily pharmacological intervention. It is doing something to digestion, circulation, fluid metabolism, hormonal signaling, or inflammatory tone every day, at a dose, continuously. Chinese herbs are pharmacologically active — several common ones measurably affect the cytochrome P450 enzymes that clear prescription drugs, which is precisely the evidence that they are doing something real (Hsieh & Huang, Journal of the Chinese Medical Association, 2026).

What herbs are good at: changing the underlying terrain over weeks to months. Digestion, sleep architecture, cycle regulation, fluid and inflammatory patterns, recovery of depleted reserve.

What they are less good at: acute relief. A formula rarely resolves an acute headache in twenty minutes. Acupuncture often does.

Why combining them makes clinical sense

Put plainly: acupuncture regulates the system, herbs rebuild it, and the two run on different clocks.

They cover each other's gaps in time. Acupuncture produces change in the room and for some days after. The formula works in the intervening days. In a case where the problem is genuinely chronic, that continuity is often the difference between a course of treatment that holds and one that resets every week.

They allow a lower dose of each. A patient receiving both frequently needs fewer sessions than one receiving acupuncture alone, because less of each visit is spent recovering ground lost since the last one.

They can be aimed at different layers of the same case. In a migraine presentation with Liver yang rising, the point selection addresses the acute pain and the tension driving it; the formula addresses the blood or yin deficiency underneath that lets yang rise in the first place. Branch and root, treated simultaneously — which is the classical framing and also just sound clinical sequencing.

The herbal side is where a functional medicine finding gets acted on daily. If testing shows low digestive output or a bile flow problem, a formula is one of the routes for addressing it seven days a week. Acupuncture cannot deliver that.

There is trial-level support for the combination in specific conditions. In postmenopausal osteoporosis, for instance, combined acupuncture and herbal medicine has outperformed calcium plus calcitonin in controlled comparison, with greater bone density improvement and better pain reduction. That is one condition, not a general proof, and I would not stretch it into one.

When combining them is not the right call

I want to be specific here, because this is where the honest answer diverges from the profitable one.

Acute, simple, mechanical problems. A neck strain from sleeping wrong, an ankle sprain, a recent muscle injury. Acupuncture, a few sessions, done. Adding a formula to that is adding cost and complexity to a case that does not need either.

Anyone on narrow-therapeutic-index medication where the interaction risk is not worth it. Warfarin and other anticoagulants, certain antiepileptics, immunosuppressants after transplant, some oncology agents. Some combinations are workable with timing separation and monitoring. Some are not worth attempting, and the correct answer is acupuncture alone.

Patients who will not take the formula. Adherence is a clinical variable. Chinese herbs taste like what they are. A patient who will not drink a decoction daily is better served by acupuncture and a realistic dietary plan than by an expensive formula that sits in a cupboard.

Cases where the herbs alone would do it. This happens more than clinics admit. Some digestive and cycle presentations respond to a formula and dietary change without weekly visits. Recommending both when one would suffice is a revenue decision wearing a clinical costume.

Before a full medication review. The list comes first. Every prescription, over-the-counter drug, and supplement, with doses. A practitioner who writes a formula without asking has skipped the step that matters most.

What the combination should look like in practice

A reasonable structure for a chronic case: acupuncture weekly or twice weekly at the start, tapering as the condition stabilizes, with a formula running continuously and adjusted at each visit based on how the pulse and tongue have changed.

The formula changes. That is the point of pattern reassessment happening every visit — the presentation shifts as treatment works, and a formula written eight weeks ago for a picture that no longer exists is no longer the right formula. A clinic that dispenses the same product for six months is not practicing Chinese herbal medicine; it is selling a supplement.

Sourcing is a safety matter rather than a quality preference. Herbs should come from suppliers running third-party testing for heavy metals, pesticides, and pharmaceutical adulterants, with documentation available on request. Ask for it.

What this means for you

If your condition is chronic, multi-system, or has outlasted a course of treatment already, the combination is usually worth it, and the reason is continuity rather than intensity.

If your problem is acute, local, and mechanical, acupuncture alone is likely the whole answer, and you should be told that rather than sold a package.

If you take prescription medication, the interaction review comes before any formula, without exception.

If a clinic recommends both before assessing you, you have learned something useful about how they make decisions.

Wondering whether your case calls for one or both? Text us at (206) 402-3813 with your medication list and what you have already tried, and we will tell you honestly which parts would actually help.

Courtney M. Zeller, AEMP, L.Ac., MS is the owner and primary practitioner at GoodMedizen in downtown Seattle, where she has practiced acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine since 2011. She holds a Master of Science in Acupuncture from Bastyr University and NCCAOM board certification.

This article is educational and is not medical advice. Do not start or stop any medication based on it. Nothing here is intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

downtown seattle's home for personalized, integrative care: acupuncture, herbs, and functional medicine