Pelvic Care Blog
Our blog is dedicated to supporting acupuncturists who specialize or hope to specialize in pelvic health. We hope you enjoy our musings and offerings.
Sixteen New Pelvic Acupuncturists, Two Graduates Who Came Back, and a Closing Circle I Will Not Forget
There is a moment at the end of every practical that I wait for. The closing circle. The room goes quiet in a different way than it was quiet during lecture. Sixteen new pelvic acupuncturists sat in that space in Seattle this past weekend, and two graduates who had already walked through this exact training came back.
Pain With Sex Is Not Rare. It's Just Rarely Spoken.
This Wednesday, September 23rd at 12pm EST, I'm teaching a free Grand Rounds session on Dyspareunia. We'll cover the differential, the red flags that require referral, the TCM patterns most commonly seen, point protocols backed by current research, and the intake questions that make room for the sentence a client has been avoiding.
pelvic Acupuncture Pricing
Most of the acupuncturists I know undercharge. Not by a little. By a lot. We undercharge in a way that no one in our profession quite says out loud, and we undercharge for reasons that are tangled up in our own relationship with money, our training, our gender, the cultural framing of our medicine and the belief that asking for money is at odds with being a healer. This belief lives in YOUR body. It shows up as the slight pause before quoting a price, the apology built into the sentence, the discount offered before it is asked for.
The Last Practical of 2026 Has Four Seats Left
Seattle sold out. AND Both Montreal dates sold out.
48 acupuncturists said yes to closing the gap in pelvic care this fall, fast enough that I had to close registration early on both coasts. I am sitting with real gratitude this week. Every one of those seats is a practitioner who is about to walk back into clinic with real time needle guidance for pelvic floor dysfunction, hands on palpation training and the confidence to use it Monday morning.
Pelvic Health Continuing Education for Acupuncturists in Seattle
We are heading back to SIEAM for the Pelvic Care Practical for Acupuncturists on September 12 + 13. Join us for this two day, live, hands-on training with Dr. Krystal Lynn Couture.
A new double blind RCT just published in The Journal of Pain
A new double blind, placebo controlled RCT on acupuncture for vulvodynia was just published in The Journal of Pain. It is the first multi needle, multi session, double blind acupuncture trial ever conducted for this condition. The lead investigator, Dr. Judith Schlaeger at University of Illinois Chicago, partnered with Dr. Ted Kaptchuk at Harvard's Program in Placebo Studies and Dr. Nobuari Takakura in Japan, whose lab developed the only validated double blind acupuncture needles in existence.
How to talk to patients about Pelvic Acupuncture
A colleague asked me recently what I actually say when I bring up the pelvic floor with a patient for the first time. This is the resource I wish I had been handed in my first year of practice. The phrases I come back to. The ones that work in real rooms with real patients.
Why Pelvic Health Needs a Voice: My Conversation on Her Voice Shines
Dr. Krystal Couture joins Her Voice Shines to talk pelvic health, the care gap her clients fell into and why this work finally deserves a voice. Listen in.
How to Introduce Your Pelvic Acupuncture Services to Local Healthcare Providers
How do you actually get on the radar of the providers in your community? Not just the pelvic PTs. The OB/GYNs, urogynecologists, REIs, urologists, oncologists, midwives, doulas and pelvic chiropractors who are seeing the same clients you want to serve.
the transcare your clients cannot find anywhere else
Every body has a pelvis, and every body deserves a practitioner ready to treat it. Join the Chicago Pelvic Care Practical on June 20 and 21 and receive the Pelvic Health + Transcare Webinar free this Pride month.
How to Collaborate with Pelvic PTs
Let's talk about what it looks like to actually walk into your community and build referral relationships with pelvic PTs without shrinking yourself in the process. This is the question I hear from acupuncturists more than almost any other. How do I work alongside the pelvic PTs in my area without stepping on their toes? How do I get on their radar without underselling what I do?
Featured in Voyage LA: Closing the Gap, One Acupuncturist at a Time
The interview gave me the chance to say, in one place, the thing I have spent 19 years trying to say.
Someone nominated us for Voyage LA, and I still don't know who.
I got the note that The Pelvic Acu had been chosen for a feature, and I sat with it for a minute, a little teary, because someone out there decided this work was worth pointing a light at. If that someone is reading this: thank you. You have no idea.
We've Been Needling the Pelvic Floor for Thousands of Years
We have been needling the pelvic floor for over two thousand years. So here is the question I want every acupuncturist reading this to sit with: why have we let the pelvic floor become someone else's medicine?
Ashi Points vs. Trigger Points: What Research Tells Us About Dry Needling
As acupuncturists, we have been navigating a quiet identity question for years. A growing number of physical therapists, chiropractors, and athletic trainers are inserting filiform needles into muscle tissue and calling it dry needling. Patients are receiving the work. Insurance is increasingly covering it. And our profession has been left to ask whether what they are doing is, in fact, our medicine practiced under a different name.
Chicago Is Next, And I Want You in the Room!
Pelvic Care for Acupuncturists · June 20 + 21, 2026 · Chicago, IL
There is something that happens in the room when a group of acupuncturists comes together to learn pelvic care. I have watched it happen city after city. Practitioners walk in with nervousness that becomes curiosity, and by the end of day two, something has shifted. Not just in what they know, but in how they see the body, how they see their patients, and honestly, how they see themselves.
That is what I am bringing to Chicago this June.
Profound Gratitude
In the years, it took me to build this program and bring it into its current tangible form, I knew it had this potential, but when I look into the eyes of every single practitioner who attends the essence of this medicine becomes real.
Vulvodynia
Vulvodynia affects approximately 7% of American women, yet many suffer for years before receiving an accurate diagnosis. This chronic vulvar pain of unknown origin, lasting at least three months, can devastate intimate relationships and severely impact quality of life. For acupuncturists treating pelvic health conditions, understanding vulvodynia and the growing evidence supporting acupuncture as an effective treatment offers hope to patients who have often exhausted conventional options.
PELVIC CARE PRACTICAL: VIENNA, VIRGINIA
Step into pelvic care with confidence. This 2-day hands-on training in Vienna, VA gives acupuncturists the tools, techniques, and clinical experience to start treating pelvic conditions immediately.
NEW PUBLICATION: CHRONIC PELVIC PAIN & ACUPUNCTURE
Dr. Krystal Lynn Couture has officially been published in collaboration with Golden Flower Chinese Herbs.
This work brings forward a powerful and much-needed conversation around chronic pelvic pain (CPP) and the role of acupuncture in addressing one of the most complex and underserved conditions in modern healthcare.
