Acupuncture Offers Relief to Veterans

Acupuncture Offers Relief to Veterans

EAST LYME, Conn. (WTNH) — Twice a month a group of veterans young and old get a treatment that’s a little outside the box – acupuncture. It’s David LoPriore’s, L.Ac., way of giving back to those who’ve given to our country. “In an eight to ten minute interaction with a veteran, I can give them a really good treatment that helps tremendously, not only with physical symptoms but also with post traumatic stress, anxiety, depression, substance abuse issues,” LoPriore explained.
For many veterans, medication is often the answer, but LoPriore says acupuncture can be a great alternative. “I think anything you can do to treat a veteran or any person without involving medication or surgery or anything that’s going to have side effects is only going to help them more,” he explained.
LoPriore has been practicing the ancient technique for more than 25 years. In the free group he offers sessions, he focuses on the ear, which he says can target ailments all over the body. “The ear is what we call a microsystem in Asian medicine, so these are areas that are small subsets of the body that reflect the whole,” LoPriore said.
So far, the sessions are helping with Joe Raia’s knee trouble. “My knee started going out about three months ago and I said, ‘I have to do something about this,’” Raia recalled. “My first meeting was last week and I actually felt 40 percent better — my knee. If it’s that good, I’m going to come back again.”
Acupuncture is also helping Mike Lally, who spent four years in the Marine Corps. “We were the first infantry battalion into Iraq,” Lally recalled. “I was in the invasion in 2003 and then we patrolled the Syrian border in 2004.”
Lally joined the military as one man, and came out as another. “When you go to a war time zone and come back, your life is just different,” Lally explained.
He suffers from post traumatic stress disorder. “You need to remind yourself a lot that it’s just a normal feeling,” Lally said. “Some people have to face scarier things than others and it just takes longer to get over.”

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