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Sticking To Her Goals

Tribune photo by SCOTT ISKOWITZ

Becky Rubright performs acupuncture at her business, the Living Harmony Healing Center. Rubright moved the center from Apollo Beach to Seminole Heights.

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By KATHY STEELE

The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 17, 2008

SEMINOLE HEIGHTS - Her hands feel their way across bare skin, kneading and gently prodding, and then in a blink, the thin needle finds root.

Becky Rubright does this a dozen times or so, in shallow punctures, on her patient's back, arm and ankle.

"It doesn't hurt at all," said Laurel Tesmer. "I feel her pushing."

When Tesmer told her doctor she was going to see an acupuncturist she got an indifferent response - "There's nothing wrong with it. If you like it, do it."

She had been diagnosed with Bell's palsy. One morning she awoke with what felt like a sinus infection, but within hours the right side of her face and neck were paralyzed.

Tesmer faced a treatment regimen of steroids and anti-inflammatory medicine, and an uncertain recovery of as long as six months. She had to lubricate her right eye and tape it shut.

For a wills and estate lawyer who sees people all day, that was an unhappy diagnosis.

"I pretty much called Becky, desperate," said Tesmer, who heard of Rubright through a friend.

In four weeks of acupuncture treatments, Tesmer said her palsy vanished. She still sees Rubright about every two weeks, but these visits are about morning sickness, exhaustion and back pain.

Tesmer is three months pregnant with her second child.

Acupuncture wasn't Rubright's initial career choice. More than 10 years ago she was on track for a mainstream medical career. Part-time jobs in Boulder, Colo., at nursing homes and a home health agency as a certified nurse's assistant - "the grunts of the nursing world" - put her on another path.

Many of her patients were paralyzed and "didn't have any more Western medical options," she said.

A quadriplegic in considerable pain tried acupuncture and "got a lot of relief from it. If you can make people more comfortable I thought, 'OK, I want to try it,'" Rubright said.

She enrolled in a four-year master's program at Emperor's College in Santa Monica, Calif., that combined classroom instruction and clinical internships. The 25-year-old college is accredited by the Maryland-based Accreditation Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine.

About six years ago, Rubright opened Living Harmony Healing Center in a strip mall in Apollo Beach and built a sizable practice. But the calm and peace she created inside the center always felt at odds with the commercial pace of the mall. Rubright's ideal was to find a home-based oasis in a quiet neighborhood. Unexpectedly, she found that about 18 months ago when she saw a For Sale sign at a home at 4203 N. Central Ave., near Hillsborough High School.

She remodeled a concrete-block building behind her new home into an office with a consultation and treatment room. Outside, a tall Buddha watches over a small meditation garden.

"It makes it feel more removed from the world," Rubright said.

Acupuncture has been a mainstay of Chinese health care for thousands of years. It is a technique for unblocking the body's energy, or qi (pronounced chi), which flows along 12 pathways.

In good health, a person's energy is said to flow freely, achieving the harmony and balance of yin and yang. Chinese medicine recognizes up to 500 points on the body where needles unblock the qi and restore balance and health.

In some cases, needles are heated or stimulated with weak electrical currents or ultrasound.

Acupuncture gained attention in the United Sates in the early 1970s, when New York Times reporter James Reston wrote about his emergency appendectomy while in China covering President Nixon's groundbreaking trip.

Reston was amazed that acupuncture following surgery drastically reduced his pain.

There are skeptics, including physicians who say it is more placebo than medical treatment.

But Rubright said, "Nothing gets used that long if it doesn't work."

She recalls the husband of one of her patients who was persuaded to try acupuncture for neck pain.

Pain-free after his treatments, Rubright said he confessed to expecting "chicken guts and voodoo" but became a believer.

"I certainly don't do any chants or rituals with people," she said. "Ideally, it should be used as a preventative and you can remain in balance."

She sees patients by appointment Tuesday through Saturday, though on occasion makes house calls. Fees for the first two-hour consultation are $120, with subsequent one-hour treatments $75. But Rubright said fees are on a sliding scale, reflecting the downturn in the economy.

Treatments are for many reasons: insomnia, lower back pain, migraines, menstrual disorders, menopause, sciatica, acne, allergies, arthritis, depression and rehabilitation after surgery or injuries.

If patients are comfortable with aromatherapy and the foot-massaging technique of reflexology, Rubright includes those in her treatments.

"The sense of smell goes directly to our brain," she said. "It immediately transports you memorywise. It can be a nice way to cap a session."

IF YOU GO

WHAT: Living Harmony Healing Center; acupuncture, aromatherapy and reflexology

WHERE: 4203 N. Central Ave.

WHEN: Tuesday through Saturday by appointment

CONTACT: (813) 892-6909 or www.myspace.com/livingharmony

Reporter Kathy Steele can be reached at (813) 259-7652 or ksteele@tampatrib.com. For an audio slide show on Living Harmony Healing Center, go to centraltampa.tbo.com or south tampa.tbo.com, Keyword: Living Harmony,

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