Serving Veterans
As a U.S. Army veteran and spouse of a retired veteran, Dr. Jennifer M. Williams is honored to serve veterans at low or no fee. Dr. Jen is a registered and approved acupuncture provider for Veterans Affairs through United Health. She serves all veterans in Eastern Tennessee, Western North Carolina, and Southern Virginia.
Wood Element offers community acupuncture prices in private settings for low as $35.00 a treatment. Veterans may also request acupuncture through their VA care provider. However, the Whole Health program has resulted in limited options for authentic acupuncture. Veterans are currently offered ear acupuncture protocols that may provide temporary pain relief similar to taking medication for pain, but there is no differential diagnosis designed to address the root of the complex presentation.
Dr. Jennifer M. Williams utilizes a variety of acupuncture approaches and specializes in complicated presentations, severe chronic pain, internal medicine, neurological, post-stroke, and brain injury.
Many VAMCs offer in-house acupuncture by licensed acupuncturists, but there are significant limitations to that delivery of acupuncture. In some VAMCs, there are providers with less than 30 hours of training applying basic and often subpar acupuncture approaches. While most ear acupuncture protocols can provide some level of temporary pain relief, the approach fails to address the underlying issues, mechanisms, and significant comorbidities. Advanced acupuncture approaches, however, can render both sustained pain relief and functional improvement.
For example, often low back arises from inflammation that gravitates to the legs and fills upward. This results in irritated nerves from the low back, through the hips, down the legs, and often into the feet. This presents as periodic sciatic pain, muscle spasticity in the legs, cramps in the calves, and some cramping in the toes. This is due to the excess fluid entrapping areas of the main leg that originates around L4-S1, connects to the sciatic nerve, and becomes the main nerve down the back of the leg to the feet. Inflammation is usually caused by a traumatic event, diet, medication, and more recently covid virus and shots.
For more information, see Acupuncture Approaches Chart