Jeff Rippey

Acupuncturist

1011 E St Maartens Drive A St Joseph MO, 64506 Show map

About
Contacts & Locations

About

I'm a nationally board certified and state licensed doctor of acupuncture. I run a solo clinic in St. Joseph, MO. I specialize primarily in pain management, but also work with depression, anxiety, PTSD, and digestive disorders. I work across the spectrum of pain, from acute injury to neuropathy - any type pain, at any location on the body, for any reason.

Education and Training

Colorado School of Traditional Chinese Medicine M.S. Acupuncture 2016

PCHS D.Ac. 2020

Board Certification

National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine

Provider Details

MaleEnglish

Jeff Rippey

Why It's Hard To Tell Patients Where Needles Might Be Placed
I've been answering questions on this site for a couple of years now. There's been a recent trend towards acupressure questions which I addressed in my first blog post. Generally, though, I've noticed that questions tend to fall into a few buckets:...
Why It's Difficult to Answer Acupressure/Pressure Point Questions
As part of this site, patients have the capability of asking questions of practitioners and subject matter experts. Recently I’ve been seeing a lot of questions that take the form, “Please tell me x pressure point for treating y health condition”. I generally try to help these folks understand...

How long is the treatment for chronic back pain?
This is a fair question, and it's one I get a lot - both online and in person. The problem is: I don't know. I can give you some statistical generalities, but these may or may not apply to your specific, individual case. In other words, these are more like guidelines and less of a hard and fast number. Across multiple studies of acupuncture, there is a very consistent 5% non-response rate. In plain english, this means about 5% of the population do not get any benefit from acupuncture. Obviously, odds are in your favor that you're in the other 95%, but we need to keep the non-response rate in mind over the first 3-5 treatments. If you get 3-4 treatments into a course of therapy and aren't noticing any change to your pain levels, it's possible you're in that 5%. The 95% who do respond to acupuncture are going to break out along a spectrum of people who respond quickly and people who respond more slowly. I have had many patients whose pain levels were decreased with the insertion of the first few needles - in other words, pain relief is virtually immediate. I've had a lot of patients who notice their pain is decreased by the next day or so after treatment. And I've had patients who couldn't tell anything was changing until after the 2nd or 3rd treatment. This is why I always tell prospective patients to give acupuncture 3-5 sessions before deciding it's not working. It's entirely possible they're in the slow responder group and need 2-3 treatments to get things moving. In my experience, people who respond more quickly take less treatment and require less maintenance. People who respond more slowly take more treatment and require more frequent maintenance. READ MORE
Numbness and tingling after acupuncture?
To be able to answer a question like this, I would have a lot of questions that would need to be answered: What condition or issue are you trying to treat with acupuncture? What was your Chinese diagnosis for this problem? Where have the needles been placed? Was any electrical stimulation utilized? Are you seeing an actual L.Ac./R.Ac. or are you seeing a chiropractor or other provider who is offering 'acupuncture-like' services? Generally speaking, when I see questions like this my first piece of advice is to talk to the original provider. Explain what has been happening and see what they think. They're in the best position to troubleshoot what might be going on because they have (or should have) most of the answers to the questions I listed above. If your original provider is dismissive of your problem or otherwise not helpful, I'd sign a records release and get a copy of your treatment record to date. From there I'd find a few other local providers - you can use NCCAOM.org's 'Find a Practitioner' lookup to get locally licensed and board-certified providers. Take your treatment record to them, explain your original issue and what happened during treatment with your first provider and see what the new provider thinks. READ MORE
Can chronic neck pain go away?
The answer to these types of questions, unfortunately, is "it depends". What's causing your neck pain? If this is something like age-related disk/vertebral degeneration, arthritis, or stenosis, then the answer is: the pain can be managed and may be brought to a point where it doesn't interfere much with your life, but it'll always be there. If this is something like a soft tissue injury that has persisted for a bit then it's possible, with the right treatment and the right provider, that it could be resolved. READ MORE
Can chronic headaches be fixed?
A lot is going to depend on why you're experiencing chronic headaches. Is it the result of some sort of injury? Do you have a history of migraine? Do you carry a lot of tension in the shoulders and upper back Acupuncture and Chinese medicine typically do very well with pain, including chronic pain? I've done quite a bit of work with chronic headaches that had a variety of causes. I'm almost always able to at least make a person more comfortable. READ MORE
How can I fix my chronic earache?
Have you been to an ENT (Ear, Nose, Throat doctor)? Is there a cause/diagnosis for your chronic pain? For something affecting the ears, it's best to at least attempt to get to the root cause of the issue. If you have an infection that has gone untreated or some sort of structural damage due to injury, you could be at risk of losing your hearing. If you've been to an ENT or MD and are sure there's no infection and no structural damage, and especially if the doctor couldn't tell you what was going on, then acupuncture and Chinese medicine can probably help. You can go to NCCAOM.org and use the "Find a Practitioner" link to get a list of local providers. READ MORE
Is acupuncture good for back pain?
Acupuncture is an excellent treatment for most kinds of pain, including back pain. READ MORE
Can anemia be fixed naturally?
Whether or not there's a 'natural' fix for your anemia depends a great deal on what kind of anemia you have. Sometimes anemia results from nutritional deficiencies. Assuming you're willing to make dietary changes or take supplements, anemia due to nutritional deficiency can often be handled successfully. On the other hand, sometimes anemia results from issues like an auto-immune condition. If this is the case for you, then dietary adjustment and/or supplementation are only going to get you so far. READ MORE
What is the treatment for chronic fatigue?
Acupuncture and Chinese medicine are *a* treatment for chronic fatigue - and usually a fairly successful treatment. There are a few options in the conventional medicine space, and you could always try something like regular exercise to see if that gives you a bump. READ MORE
Can chronic neck pain be fixed?
Whether or not chronic neck pain can be fixed depends on what's causing the pain and how the patient defines 'fixed'. For severe structural issues or age related degeneration of the cervical spine, 'fixed' might mean an initial set of treatments followed by some level of maintenance. For more mild issues or lingering soft tissue injury, 'fixed' might mean exactly that. A lot depends on the patient, the details of the situation, and the skill of the provider in the treatment. READ MORE
What can I do for ear ringing?
I'm a doctor of Chinese medicine so I can only answer from that perspective. Tinnitus (ringing ears) is the holy grail of acupuncture. It's an extremely difficult issue to work with and, at least in my experience, patients rarely make much headway. I've tried combining Chinese medicine with conventional medicine, with chiropractic, and with nutritional supplementation. Nothing works well, to be honest. Sometimes patients do find treatments that work for their tinnitus, so I don't want to discourage you from trying some options. READ MORE
How long is the treatment for migraines?
Chinese medicine is individualized, so it's very difficult to say how many treatments might be required to bring something like migraine under control. Typically by the 2nd or 3rd treatment, I have a pretty good idea where a patient is going to end up and how long it's going to take to get there. I can give you some very general data based on pain management studies that have been done. The thing to keep in mind is statistical data does not tell us anything about how a given individual will respond - some may require more treatment and some may require less. That being said, statistically speaking, a course of acupuncture therapy is usually in the 8-10 range. My own experience with treating migraines falls, more or less, in line with the statistics. Sometimes migraine patients require a bit of maintenance on top of the initial set of treatments. READ MORE
Should I see a doctor for hip pain?
If the pain is severe or you've been experiencing pain for more than a couple of weeks, yes, you should probably see someone about it. READ MORE
What are the treatment options for leg nerve pain?
Treatment options will depend on what, exactly, is causing the nerve pain. You might have type 2 diabetes which is causing diabetic neuropathy. If this is the case, treating the diabetes and getting a handle on your blood sugar can sometimes go a long way towards improving the pain. Acupuncture, physical therapy, prescription meds, and/or exercise can all help to manage the pain, though, in my experience, the degree of pain management is going to be directly related to your ability to keep your blood sugar under control. You might have a pinched nerve in your low back. If this is the case, physical therapy, exercise, yoga, acupuncture, chiropractic, or TaiJi could all potentially improve your situation. If something in the low spine is severely impinged, surgery might be your best option for relief. You might have a vitamin deficiency leading to degradation of the nerves and pain. If this is the case, correcting the diet and, potentially, adding some supplements will be required to get things back on track for you. Acupuncture, physical therapy, and/or exercise can all help to manage the pain while the body repairs itself. You might be getting exposure to environmental toxins either through your workplace or from your hobbies. If this is the case, the first step will be to identify the agent or agents and then limit or cease your exposure. Some toxins accumulate in the body and are difficult to impossible to eliminate. Depending on the substance, chelation therapy can sometimes help. Acupuncture can help to manage the pain while you figure out how to limit exposure and whether anything can be done for any toxins accumulated in your system. Some cancers and most chemo treatments will cause nerve pain. This usually becomes a management situation and acupuncture can be extremely useful in the case of chemo induced neuropathy. You might have an injury - even an old one that has further degraded - that is now pressing on a nerve or nerves and causing pain. In this case, prescription drugs, acupuncture, physical therapy, and exercise could all play a role in getting things back to normal. You could have one of a variety of inflammatory diseases or conditions where fluid build up from inflammation is pressing on one or more nerves. Anti-inflammatory meds can help in this case. Acupuncture still has a role due to its ability to down regulate the immune system and lower systemic inflammation. There may be more specific treatments based on what particular disease process we're talking about. As you can see, it's not as simple as "I have x, how do I treat it?" READ MORE
Can chronic neck pain be fixed?
The answer will depend on two things: 1. What is the cause of your neck pain? 2. What's your definition of "fixed"? I do a lot of work with pain management - it's probably 90% of my practice. Many of those patients have neck pain. For the majority of my neck pain patients, the pain is due to age related degeneration in the cervical spine. This can be arthritis with or without bone spurs, disk degeneration, or degradation of the vertebrae themselves. These issues represent accumulated damage that isn't going away. "Fixed" for these folks typically means some level of maintenance treatment following an initial loading dose of acupuncture. The remaining neck pain patients fall into more of a soft tissue injury category. Sometimes it's an old whiplash injury, sometimes the cause is unknown. These folks usually don't have any structural issues in the spine itself. In this case "fixed" can sometimes mean a complete cessation of pain. READ MORE
Can anemia be fixed without medications?
There are a variety of different kinds of anemia. The cause can range from nutrient deficiencies to auto-immune conditions. The degree to which anemia can be improved without prescription drugs is entirely dependent on what specific type of anemia you have. If the diagnosing clinician is recommending meds straight out of the gate, it's likely that you have one of the more uncommon types of anemia. In this case, you're going to want to follow their advice. The most common types of anemia are usually related to nutrient deficiencies. Often, these issues can be addressed through dietary modification and/or supplementation. I prefer for patients to get their vitamins and minerals from dietary sources. The problem is that food quality is increasingly poor and people often have dietary restrictions which prevent them from accessing the highest quality nutrients for the problem. At a minimum, you need to make sure you have a good source of iron (preferably heme iron as that's the easiest for the human digestive system to absorb), and a good source of vitamin B12. You can Google both heme iron and B12 to see what the common sources are. If you're not willing to make those changes, then you're going to need some level of vitamin/mineral supplementation. READ MORE
Can you help with chronic sinusitis?
Usually, yes, acupuncture can help provide relief for chronic sinusitis and allergy. READ MORE
Can chronic knee pain be fixed?
The answer to your question is: it depends. What's the cause of your chronic knee pain? How do you define 'fixed'? If you have osteoarthritis and all the joint cartilage is gone (i.e. you're bone on bone in the knee), in my experience acupuncture can help manage the pain but you're probably going to need joint replacement or some other therapy on top of the acupuncture. If you have a full thickness ligament or tendon tear that hans't been corrected, again, acupuncture can help to manage the pain, but something else is likely going to need to be done. If this is a meniscus tear with or without surgical correction, acupuncture can sometimes provide permanent to semi-permanent relief. If this is minor to moderate osteoarthritis, minor tear to ligament or tendon, a muscle issue in either the thigh or hamstrings, something going on in your hips/low back, excessive muscle tension in the calf, or other soft tissue injury around the knee, it's much more likely acupuncture can provide significant relief. If you've been to several docs, had imaging done, and no one can tell you why you're experiencing knee pain, then it's much more likely acupuncture is going to deliver some level of relief. READ MORE
Can you help with chronic headaches?
Usually, yes, acupuncture is an excellent treatment for chronic headache. READ MORE
How long is acupuncture for fatigue?
I'm not sure whether you're asking how long acupuncture treatment lasts or how many treatment sessions might be required. For starters, acupuncture can be a good treatment choice for chronic fatigue. In terms of how many sessions might be necessary, statistically, the number is usually between 8 and 10. Keep in mind that's *statistically*, and doesn't tell us how any given individual might respond. You could take less treatment, you could take more. How long acupuncture lasts has a lot to do with how many treatment sessions you've had. More treatment typically results in longer-lasting improvement. READ MORE
What are the acupressure points for headaches?
This isn't how acupuncture/Chinese medicine works. There is no one set of points for the treatment of anything. In order to give you information that would have the slightest chance of helping you, I'd need to understand a lot more about your headache. If you're interested in trying acupuncture for your issue, and headache is one area where acupuncture can be really effective, go see an NCCAOM nationally board certified and state licensed acupuncturist in your area. You can get started with the 'Find a Practitioner' link at NCCAOM.org. READ MORE