Chronic & Complex Care · Hillcrest, San Diego
For the conditions that keep being treated and keep coming back. Classical acupuncture works at the root your labs don't measure, alongside the care team you already have.
Is this you?
You have seen the specialists. You take what you were prescribed, you manage the flares, and some seasons are better than others. But the condition is being maintained, not resolved, and somewhere along the way you were told this is simply how it will be. Maybe your labs look fine while your body clearly is not. Maybe every new symptom gets its own referral, and no one is looking at the whole.
This work is for that whole. I am not a replacement for your physicians; I work gladly alongside them. What I bring is a different lens: a complete, classical medicine that asks why your body chose this pattern, what it is protecting you from, and what it needs to finally finish the job.
Where This Work Reaches
Choose an area. Each condition links to how I approach it.
Autoimmunity, in the classical reading, is the body holding something in hiding it never had the resources to expel. We rebuild those resources so it can.
Also in this work
Complex, many-system pictures like Lyme and post-viral syndromes sit under chronic & complex illness. Metabolic support, including life alongside diabetes, is addressed through the hormonal and digestive work.
Nerves under siege from what the body quarantined to protect you. The work drains what was stored and rebuilds what the nerves live on.
Also in this work
Degenerative neurological pictures, including MS, are approached through the same channel systems, always alongside your neurologist.
Pain that returns after every treatment is not failing to heal. It is held at the root, and the root is where we work.
Just got hurt instead?
Acute & sports injury care →The body keeps what the mind could not finish carrying, sometimes since childhood. Releasing it is physical work, done gently.
When the body runs dry, sleep, energy, and hormones fail together. They are rebuilt together too.
Go deeper
How many sessions will I need →The How
Almost every chronic condition I treat is the same story told in different tissue. Years ago, the body met something it could not defeat in that moment: a pathogen, a toxin, a trauma. So it did the intelligent thing. It dragged the threat into hiding, in the joints, the gut, the vessels, the deep constitution, and it has been spending your reserves ever since to hold that door shut. While the reserves held, you felt mostly fine. When they ran dry, what was hidden began to surface: as chronic pain, as neuropathy, as autoimmunity, as the fatigue that no amount of sleep touches.
This is why suppressing the symptom so often disappoints. The symptom is the body's strategy, not its mistake. The real work is to rebuild the specific reserves your body went bankrupt on, then help it finish the fight it paused, safely and in order.
Classical Chinese Medicine keeps the tools for this. The Divergent channels manage what the body holds in hiding: they rebuild the deep reserves and, when you are strong enough, escort the hidden burden up and out. The Luo channels release what the vessels have stored, including old emotional charge and the slow inflammatory drain that keeps your defenses stuck on high alert. The Eight Extraordinary vessels reach the constitutional level, where the earliest and deepest patterns live. Most acupuncture practiced in the U.S. works almost entirely in the primary channels and rarely touches these systems. This is the part of the medicine I trained specifically to practice.
Working Together
Chronic work is a partnership over time. I do not hand you a fixed plan on day one, because your body's needs change as it rebuilds; each session meets what is actually in front of us. My part is accurate diagnosis and precise treatment. Your part is honest participation, including the food and rest that rebuild what we are treating; in chronic cases, what you eat shapes the pace as much as the needles do.
Your physicians stay your physicians. I provide superbills, I am in-network with Cigna, and I am glad to coordinate with your care team. Many patients find the two lenses see more together than either does alone.
In Their Words
"I was having problems with arthritis in my hands and thought acupuncture would help. I found Gateway online with great reviews. I've had four appointments in two weeks with fantastic results."
— Tina B."I've been treated by Diego for 3 years. I originally started seeing him for chronic stress and neck issues. Now I've been treated for stress, recovery, immune boosting, weight loss, and nutrition."
— Frank M.Individual results vary; testimonials reflect personal experiences and do not represent typical outcomes.
Pricing
No add-on charges for cupping, moxa, or bodywork. The session is the session.
A relaxed call about your history and whether this is the right work for you. No pressure either way.
Your full history, classical pulse diagnosis, channel assessment, and a same-day treatment.
Continued treatment, adjusted to how your body is showing up that day, with ongoing lifestyle guidance.
The container: chronic work rewards commitment, so many patients choose a container: a set of prepaid sessions committed to together as one working period, at a rate that honors that commitment. We shape it in conversation, once we both understand what your body is asking for.
Every included modality, no upcharges: cupping, gua sha, moxibustion, infrared, tui na bodywork. Whatever your treatment calls for is done as clinically relevant. Payment: cash, credit, HSA, and FSA accepted. In-network with Cigna; superbills provided for all other insurers.
Common Questions
Yes, and that is how I prefer to work. Your physicians manage the medical picture; I work at the level of the body's reserves and channels. I provide superbills, I am in-network with Cigna, and I am glad to coordinate with your team.
Because it is a different lens, not a stronger version of the same one. Most care manages the symptom where it surfaces. Classical medicine reads the symptom as the body's strategy and works on what the strategy is protecting: the depleted reserves and the burden held in hiding. Different target, different tools.
I won't promise a timeline, because honest chronic work doesn't run on one. Conditions that took years to build usually ask for months of steady work to unwind. Every visit is its own reassessment, and you will always know what I'm seeing and why we're doing what we're doing.
A set of prepaid sessions committed to together as one working period, at a rate that honors the commitment. It exists because chronic work deepens when both of us are committed to a stretch of it, not visit by visit. We shape the details in conversation.
Acupuncture works alongside medication, and I never adjust or advise on prescriptions; that stays between you and your prescribing doctor. Bring your medication list to the intake so the whole picture is on the table.
The chronic and complex range: autoimmune conditions, neuropathy including chemo-induced, chronic pain and arthritis, migraines, gut conditions like IBS, insomnia, chronic fatigue, hormonal imbalance, and the long shadow of trauma. The condition areas above link to how I approach each.
An honest fit
A brief, complimentary call: your history, what you have tried, and whether this lens fits your picture. If it doesn't, I will say so and point you toward what might.