Wendy Stedeford Acupuncture

10/16/2025

Hey Everyone,
Happy Thursday!
Starting October 20th (next Monday) the group acupuncture times will include a series for immune system resets.
Of course come in for any concerns as usual, but for anyone wanting to “winterize” their immune system we’re recommending 3-4 visits focusing on optimizing your immune system to fight against viral or bacterial infections since we’re heading into cold and flu season. Traditional East Asian medicine has had over 2,500 years of figuring out how to nip colds in the bud, lessen the severity and/or occurrence of colds and can provide lots of inside “tricks” to avoid future occurrences.
How does an immune system visit differ from a chief concern visit? The short answer? Your and your acupuncturist’s focus for your visit is optimizing your immune system rather than other pain or dysfunction concerns. In most cases, 3-4 visits should be enough to empower your immune system to fight a better fight should you encounter the sniffles, the common cold, or any other winter respiratory and GI challenges.
Come to Get It and GO! Acupuncture at Wendy Stedeford Acupuncture during group acupuncture times:

Monday- 4-5pm
Tuesdays 1-2pm
Wednesdays 1-2pm and 4-5pm

Let Wendy know you want an immune system treatment. You’ll walk away with recommendations of techniques and supplements to add to your tools for a healthier cold season.

See you at the practice!

4972 Robert J Mathews Parkway Suite 120
El Dorado Hills, CA 95762

530.409.5644

10/07/2025

Here’s an organized way of thinking about your health. East Asian medicine says that our health is dynamic. We want to stay neutral and range into the higher rungs but circumstances sometimes dictate we move down the ladder.

We can always do something positive for our health even if it’s re-commiting to getting our recommended amount of daily water or limit our sugar intake. Prevention actions are just that- an offense move meant to maintain your wellness, not a reactive/defense move because something isn’t right about your mind/body health. These prevention actions are almost limitless. Examples are hugging a tree, drinking water, checking in on our latest mood trends, learning new things, getting more fruits and veggies if you’ve been avoiding them, or using sunscreen regularly. Anything that helps to fill your good-health bucket is terrific.

The neutral zone doesn’t mean your health is static, it means that you are probably in a dynamic balance where your health is doing well and you aren’t symptomatic for anything.

Below the neutral zone it becomes a defense game. the lower you go on the ladder usually there becomes a stronger probable need for intervention. Think anything from antibiotic ointment to chemo. The interventions are to address an existing issue.

We are moving up and down the ladder all the time but staying from the neutral to the optimal rungs gives us more healing wiggle room just in case life throws one of its curve balls.
Currently where are you on your ladder?
What are your favorite prevention actions?

And(of course) acupuncture can be both. It’s great prevention but also part of a good “fix-It” tool.

See you at the practice.

09/30/2025

Thanks to everyone who came out and contributed to Acupuncture for Emily. It was a success and it couldn’t have been without you. Perhaps in a couple of months we’ll do an evening acupuncture session and call it Mocktails for Emily. Let us know if you have any interest 😁

09/26/2025

Happy Friday All

Just a reminder that today from 11-2 it’s the Acupuncture for Emily event. Group acupuncture for the regular $40 and anything else you are moved to donate.
Thank you in advance!

09/20/2025

I have a special announcement.
On behalf of a long-loved colleague, I'm posting this Go Fund Me page. Emily has served her community for many many years using her whole heart. She brings her natural curiosity, expertise and compassion literally to the table everyday. If you know her or are moved to help, please consider donating and be looking for a coming announcement of Acupuncture for Donation Day at the practice.

Thank you on behalf of myself and all who love Emily

08/22/2025

Alright, since this came up 4 times in the last week with patients, let’s talk about hypnosis. (I also get the chance to work with people doing hypnotherapy to help bring about positive change). No, not the stage style where it cleverly looks like people are being made to cluck like chickens but the profoundly healing way of using this tool.
Here’s the shortened version of my elevator pitch when explaining the whats, hows, and whys of this modality:
Did you know that your mind is made up of its conscious and subconscious sections?
Your conscious mind thinks it’s driving the bus but it only has about 5-10% of the say in what you accomplish and can do only one task at a time no matter how many times a person claims to be a multitasker!.
The real magic is with your subconscious. It’s a supercomputer! Think if we had to use our conscious mind to remember to take each any every breath or heartbeat? Our conscious minds can take over tasks, you’ve done this anytime you consciously change your breathing but thank goodness you keep on breathing even when your conscious mind moves on to its next thing. Thank you subconscious! Our beliefs, life stories, and personalities all reside in our subconscious. And our subconscious has 2 directives. It’s there to keep us safe and to give us our best life possible. But sometimes, because the subconscious can’t always differentiate real vs unreal or truth vs untruth, we can get a subconscious reel that doesn’t serve us well. (Think: There’s a monster under my bed!).
That’s where hypnotherapy can help. Think of it as having a productive conversation with your subconscious to bring about positive change but the “convo” leaves you feeling rested and peaceful. You can do it yourself (self hypnosis) or have help with a clinical hypnotherapist.
I’ve seen AMAZING changes in people. Too many fun stories to relate in this already long post so feel free to call the office if this sparked some curiosity in you.
See you soon.
Wendy
530.409.5644

07/31/2025

Hi All,
If you’ve ever come in to the office, you know that we want everyone to think about their overall health and wellness as being like a “beautiful and unique stew”. Just like individual food ingredients can cook into a cohesive stew, we do the same as humans. We have our own “cooking factors”. The status of our health on any given day is a reflection of 3 “cooking“ influences. The first influence is the collection of tendencies we’ve inherited from our biological predecessors. The second, is what we’ve been doing with life and third-what life has done with us. Even though these are the same factors “cooking” every human being stew, no two stews turn out exactly alike.
When someone comes in for an East Asian medicine appointment, including acupuncture, they usually have something they want to “ fix” about their health. It would be like holding out the carrots of your stew and saying, “Hey, my carrots are not delicious”. Sometimes, the chief concern is just a carrot issue but sometimes it may be more of a stew issue, and most times it’s both carrots and stew in some fashion causing the problem. Acupuncturists want all your ingredients AND your stew to always be as delicious as possible.

If you are Interested in finding out more about your stew to perhaps understand any not-so-delicious ingredients you might be experiencing, there are many ways of learning more about your health.
In August we are offering a free health assessment called the Systems Survey Scan. Simply call the office to give us your email. We will email the survey to you to complete at your convienence.(All surveys must be completed and returned by the end of August.) We will then arrange a phone consultation to review your results.
We hope that it’s an interesting experience that brings new insight into your health.

If you are ready, call the office: 530.409.5644

07/16/2025

Let’s face it- it’s a privilege to live into our elderly years, and really, what’s the alternative ? 🙂
For most of us, the longer we live past our 30s, according to Chinese medicine, the more we get to be actively mindful about cultivating and/or sustaining our wellness and good health. This can mean any and all aspects of our mind and/or physical health.
Where are your current challenges to your wellness (no matter your age)?
What are you currently doing to maintain your wellness or to address current challenges?
There’s always something you can do to improve either.
And- of course- acupuncture, herbs, supplements, nutrition and exercise are always excellent tools to help.

07/01/2025

Do you know if your zinc level is adequate?

Zinc is a very important mineral used by the body to maintain optimal functioning.
It’s crucial for maintaining a healthy immune system.
It can reduce the duration and severity of colds.
It helps the body heal wounds.
It’s necessary for the creation of some proteins which are essential for cell structure and function.
Zinc is involved in the creation and repair of your DNA.
An adequate level of zinc is needed for proper growth and development especially during childhood, adolescence and pregnancy.
It protects cells from damage caused by free radicals- in other words it acts as an antioxidant.
If you are going to smell and taste properly, you better have enough zinc!
It is needed for some hormone production, for example, in the creation of insulin and testosterone.
Your brain’s health and functioning rely upon zinc.
Also, zinc is involved in the metabolism of carbs, fats and proteins.
Sounds impressive right?
If you aren’t sure if you have adequate zinc in your system we have a simple and quick test at the office.
Ask for it at your next visit!

06/19/2025

Have a good weekend everyone!

Coming up next week at the practice-

Come try Gymnema as the Standard Process supplement of the week (hint: it involves a Hershey’s Kiss but not in the usual way…).

Also, remind Wendy to teach you a qi gong exercise just right for you.

06/17/2025

Feeling like you need a new direction to go in your daily nutrition habits? Come for Standard Process's Systems Survey assessment to understand your immediate nutrition needs but also what may be missing in your foundational nutrition needs. We combine the whole foods supplementation of Standard Process with the East Asian medicine suggestions of eating for optimal health. Knowledge that's been collected and refined over thousands of years. See you at the practice soon.

Come in for 50% off the usual cost of a nutrition visit for June and July. It's our way of showing how important we think it is for everyone to have a good nutrition plan unique to you.

Find out about everything acupuncture! Come visit us!

06/10/2025

Is it a big mystery to you about how your digestion system works?
Is one of the most central departments of your health and how it operates a big question mark?
Well, here is a simple and fun description about how food goes from being food-shaped to becoming the basic building blocks of our bodies. It would be very efficient, but a lot less fun if we could simply inject proteins, fats, carbs and other nutrients directly into our blood streams for use. Obviously, we don’t have large pieces of chicken or the last piece of broccoli traveling around in their original forms in our blood vessels. We need the nutrients that the chicken and broccoli provide but not in the original shapes. We have mechanical and chemical processes that get food from food shapes to the basic building blocks the body can use to keep us going.
In the mouth we have saliva and chewing. In the stomach it’s hydrochloride acid and stomach rugae, in the small intestine it’s all the digestive enzymes and bile finishing up the breakdown process so that most of the nutrients can be absorbed into the blood stream to start doing good work for us. Here’s the fun way to think of this:

Food starts as 2x4s. We bite off a chunk of the 2x4 and chew it into toothpicks. We swallow the toothpicks down to the stomach where the toothpicks are turned into wood slivers. The wood slivers then are processed into wood pulp in the small intestine ready for absorption.

Besides conjuring the idea of wood slivers getting caught, it’s kind of a fun way to think about your digestion right?