What to Expect at Your First Visit
Coming to a new practitioner for the first time can feel daunting — especially when fertility is what brings you. This page walks you through exactly what happens, so you arrive knowing what to expect and can settle into the appointment itself.
Before you come — a little preparation
Once you’ve booked, I’ll send you intake forms to complete and return before your appointment. These cover your health history in detail, and filling them in beforehand means we can spend your appointment time on you, not on paperwork.
If you’re comfortable sharing them, please upload any relevant reports, letters, or laboratory results to your patient portal at least 24 hours before your visit. Having time to read through your history in advance lets me come to your appointment already oriented to your particular picture — and makes the time we have together far more useful.
Bringing a partner
Fertility, endocrine, metabolic and menopause-transition consultations all begin with an initial consultation before any treatment. Not every consultation needs a partner present — but in fertility work I would encourage both partners to attend that first appointment where possible.
They are welcome to complete their own intake forms. In fertility, the couple is the unit of care — not the woman alone. Before we invest time and effort in treating the female partner, the male partner’s sperm status should be established without delay. Male factor should never be assumed absent, and it should never be the thing we overlook. Normally one person is assessed in the initial consultation; if your partner would also like their own consultation and treatment, we’ll allocate a proper initial consultation for them as well.
How long it takes
There are two ways to begin, and you choose when you book:
- Initial Consultation — 60 to 90 minutes: the full history, any results you hold read within it (or the right investigations recommended if you hold none), an examination, and a proposed plan.
- Initial Consultation + Acupuncture — 90 to 120 minutes, with your first acupuncture treatment in the same visit (many people choose this).
If you are having treatment on the same day, please come in comfortable, loose clothing that’s easy to move in.
What happens during the consultation
The heart of the first visit is a thorough, unhurried conversation — a detailed history of not just your reproductive health, but your metabolic, endocrine, digestive and general health, and how you actually feel day to day. This is where I build a picture of the whole system, not just the presenting concern. If you’d like to understand the thinking behind this, I’ve written about how I approach a first consultation.
I usually finish the consultation with nutritional and dietary guidance — from the very first appointment — aimed at steady energy production, stable blood glucose, and lower inflammation. It’s a foundation we can start building straight away, whatever else follows.
The physical assessment — reading the body with my hands
During the consultation, if something comes up that calls for it, I may carry out some palpation — along the spine, from the neck down to the lower back, and across the abdomen.
Before I give any treatment, I need to read the body, and I do that largely with my own hands. Most often this reading takes place during your first acupuncture session: I check for tension in the organs, abdominal walls and surrounding soft tissue, the state of the fascia, and circulation patterns — all of which inform a precise, individual treatment. For the abdominal work you’ll be asked to expose the tummy area.
As I work single-handed, I do not provide a chaperone, but you are welcome to bring someone of your choosing to be present.
Treatment here does not involve any internal gynaecological examination for women, or examination of the male genitals, and no treatment is applied directly to the private parts, for either men or women.
Nothing in the physical assessment should be painful or distressing; if anything feels uncomfortable, tell me straight away.
If you’re nervous about acupuncture
Many people are, especially the first time — and that’s completely normal. I am hypersensitive to pain myself, so my patients’ comfort has been my priority from the very beginning, and over three decades I have refined my technique so that treatment is precise and involves as little discomfort as possible.
Most people are surprised by how little they feel, and many relax within minutes; some drift off to sleep. If you’re anxious, tell me, and I will adjust the treatment to your sensitivity. Over the years I have treated people of every age and constitution, from infants to older and frail patients, and athletes, and I think of hands-on work as a dialogue with the patient’s nervous system. Learning to read each person’s sensitivity, and to adjust to it, has been the most rewarding part of my work.
If you’d like to understand the mechanism, I’ve written about how acupuncture works and how fertility acupuncture works.
After the first visit
By the end of your appointment, you should leave understanding your situation more clearly than when you arrived. Any recommendations — acupuncture, herbal medicine, nutritional guidance, or further investigation — follow directly from what we find together.
Ready to begin?
Book a consultation → · See fees · How I approach a first consultation