treatment room

The treatment room. Photos by Anne Proffit

In a city that seems to have small gems sprouting throughout it, here’s another one for the Downtown Long Beach area. Susan Wiggins, a former lecturer in the English department at Cal State Long Beach and also the former proprietor of The Lunch Box, a delivery service primarily for CSULB professors, has just opened Long Beach Community Acupuncture on Atlantic Avenue, between 3rd and 4th streets.

Wiggins’ route to acupuncture was a circuitous one. The Houston-area native began living in the West while attending school at the University of Nevada, Reno. After earning her PhD in literature, she later taught in Juneau, Alaska. So why did she stop teaching? Like many, she started at an early age, more than 20 years ago, and eventually saw that this wasn’t the career path for her. 

“I realized how far away I had gotten from what attracted me to teaching in the first place,” she said.

Susan WigginsIn 2005 she became a chef and started The Lunch Box a year later, realizing that her former CSULB cohorts weren’t getting the kind of energy they needed from food available on campus. But even that didn’t last as Wiggins realized The Lunch Box needed to grow, needed staff, required a work site and she wasn’t prepared to invest in those requirements for growth, particularly with the economy in a slump.

At the time, she was being treated by an acupuncturist.

“If you’re getting good treatment you get very interested in the medicine,” she said of why she began to research the subject of acupuncture and its use in Western culture. “It was an option and to study it was mind-blowing. It seemed to fit with helping people, which is one of the things I’ve felt like I’ve always wanted to do.”

Teaching, cooking, acupuncture–the steps seemed logical to her. Once she received her training and license to practice Oriental medicine, Wiggins thought she’d immediately go overseas and practice in a community that was underserved. Then she discovered the community acupuncture model and POCA, the People’s Organization of Community Acupuncture. Based in Portland, Oregon, POCA is a cooperative venture owned by patients, organizations, clinics, acupuncturists and students.

And Long Beach, she felt, was in need of her services. While there are more than 200 POCA clinics around the country, there were none in Long Beach until Wiggins opened shop in September of this year. 

“I didn’t want to do a traditional private practice and this seemed the most effective way to accomplish my goals [within the community],” she said.

In community acupuncture, the patient may be joined by many others, each receiving their singular treatment and then absorbing it in a semi-vegetative state. Wiggins staggers the appointments so someone may be quietly entering as another is quietly leaving.

exterior

At Wiggins’ clinic, the ambiance is peaceful and the lounge chairs are comfortable. It’s difficult to feel anything but warmth and comfort in her midst.

Long Beach Community Acupuncture treats all types of problems ranging from pain, stress, infertility and addictions, to name just a few. Wiggins’ fees are on a sliding scale through a “whatever you can afford” model. This enables people whose insurance won’t cover acupuncture to get the effective help they need at minimal cost.

“What intrigued me most about Chinese medicine was the language, the translation from Chinese texts,” Wiggins said. “The way they write about the medicine is highly metaphorical. There are beautiful descriptions, of not only how the herbs work but how the body works and the ways to think about different organs. With my English literature background, that really resonated with me.”

Long Beach Community Acupuncture is located at 301 Atlantic Avenue, Suite D. For more information, contact Susan Wiggins at (562) 477-5045. Her email is [email protected] and the website is longbeachcommunityacupuncture.com.

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