Today we’d like to introduce you to Soledad Duffy.
Soledad, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I believe Chinese Medicine and I were meant to cross paths and fall in love. It was just a matter of waiting for the right time because I can see all the small hints in my past leading to it. The summer of my first year of med school I got a book of Traditional Chinese Medicine at a beach store. That was my summer reading, something unheard of at the time. Being pregnant with my first child I developed sciatica and my Ob sent me to an acupuncturist in Buenos Aires. I went one time, recovered completely and never gave it a second thought. It wasn’t until I was pregnant with my third baby and after a long history miscarries and bedridden pregnancies that I faced the true power of this medicine. I did acupuncture during all my pregnancy and had, for the first time, a full term pregnancy without a day of bed rest. I was relaxed, my anxiety was significantly reduced, my energy was high and I was back to sleeping like a baby. By the time I was ready to go back to work I made one the most drastic changes in my life and went back to school to pursue a master degree in Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine. Having been a patient myself for many years I could testify to the ability of this medicine to produce tangible and permanent changes, both physically and emotionally.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It has definitively not been an interesting journey, but I am pretty sure any entrepreneur/ business owner will not tell you anything different. For me the hardest part was going back to school while managing a house with three kids, one still a baby at that time. The logistics needed for me to attend evening classes were close to magical. I am glad I had so much support at home and they all rooted for me when I came home exhausted and ready to lift the white flag. Staring a business was also challenging because I had to learn so many new things! Accounting, software, insurances, contracts. I had never done any of this before and it was overwhelming at times.
The one thing that has always been a reward to all the hard work and getting out of my comfort zone, and still is to the day, is the learning process of this Medicine. I never stop being amazed at its wisdom to observe the body and its relation to its social and natural environment and how it can detect subtle changes to diagnose patterns of disharmony. I am the biggest enthusiast about promoting and educating people on this therapy because most of the resistant comes from lack of knowledge and not understanding its pathophysiology.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
I am the owner of Solstice Acupuncture, a wellness clinic in uptown Houston, a place for restoration and healing where I integrate Eastern Medicine as part of my patients self-care practice. My main goal is to give patients their health and vitality back so they can fully engage in their own lives without the limitations chronic pain and disease. I also support fertility patients in whatever journey they are on their way to conceive, either naturally or with assisted reproductive technology. Since I became a regular acupuncture patient while being pregnant, I have made that specialty a priority in my practice. I know how to treat pregnant women and feel there is not enough awareness about the use of this therapy to relieve symptoms that would normally be left untreated for months, like nausea, pain, insomnia, just to name a few. Acupuncture for fertility seems to be the superstar, but I feel once conception happens, treating during pregnancy becomes scary and forbidden. There certainly are limitations and precautions to be taken, but performed by a trained acupuncturist in this area it is not only safe but extremely effective.
I approach this medicine in a very modern and accessible fashion. Patients are bombarded with health information today, diet, supplements, exercises, complementary therapies. The options are endless and the opinions usually contradictory. With extensive knowledge in both Western and Eastern Medicine, I am able to integrative them both to have a comprehensive view of very complex conditions. The biggest need today for integrative medicine comes from the challenge to manage pain and dysfunctional stress responses without harmful and dangerous prescription medications, but we need to give the body the space to be able to heal itself. For most of my patients, those 30 minutes on a treatment table will be the only resting time they’ll have during the week but it does have the ability to reset our sympathetic nervous system and get us out of fight/flight to a rest/digest mode.
What were you like growing up?
My nose always stuck in a book!! I haven’t changed much. LOL I was not a risk taker as a little girl growing up, so this books and stories would take me to so many faraway lands and adventures. I read so many classics, The diary of Anne Frank, The top of the world, Little Women, among others, at a very young age. I have a daughter name Emilia after the great writers Emily Bronte and Emily Dickinson. As I grew older came bigger and bigger books so I guess Medical School was the natural consequence for me since you can’t get heavier and thicker than the Harrison textbook of Internal Medicine. haha I come from a big South American family. I am one of four children and have over 50 direct cousins so all my childhood memories are very populated and loud. It was definitely hard being an introvert amongst them, so I guess that kind of shaped my personality and the way I am raising my family today.
Pricing:
- Acupuncture First Time Consultation and Treatment $150
- Acupuncture Follow Up $85
- Cosmetic Acupuncture $175
Contact Info:
- Address: 4295 San Felipe #225
Houston, Texas 77027 - Website: www.solsticeacu.com
- Phone: 8325826436
- Email: soledad@solsticeacu.com
- Instagram: @solsticeacuhtx
Image Credit:
GJ Photography
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