Sonja Hargrove says there’s a phrase that’s common among teachers and students at the Oregon College of Community Acupuncture. They often describe the ancient medical practice as “the last stop on the try-anything train, because people will often come in when nobody else has anything to offer them.”

For the former Polson resident, now 53, acupuncture was her last stop in a long pursuit of healing modalities that began when she was a teenager and suffering from chronic fatigue and health issues related to undiagnosed allergies and over treatment with antibiotics.

“I started seeing naturopaths at that point,” she says. “And it was a long journey to reverse all the things that had happened.”

Along the way, she studied massage and learned other types of somatic or body-based therapies. But acupuncture “was the only thing that touched and really fixed” some of her issues.

Her positive experience eventually led to what she calls “a lightning bolt moment” at her home in Hot Springs when she suddenly felt, “I have to get to acupuncture school, like right now.” She applied to a school in Arizona, was accepted, but decided it wasn’t a good fit.

A few months later “that message came back.” This time, she applied to the Oregon College of Community Acupuncture (OCCA) in Portland, was accepted “and I was on my way.”

She’s now nearing the end of her second year in the three-year, master’s level program, and recently returned to Montana for an internship with Monte Garnet at his Gateway to Vitality studio in Polson. Under his supervision, she now offers community clinics from 1:30-6 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays.

During those sessions, which can last anywhere from 20 minutes to over an hour if the patient falls asleep (which Hargrove says often happens), she mostly treats points on the head, hands and feet (if the patient is OK with that).

“So I can chat with somebody, have a good sense very quickly of how we can help them, put the needles in and let them sit,” she says. This approach allows her to treat up to eight people an hour.

Garnet, who has been practicing acupuncture for 34 years and opened Gateway to Vitality 25 years ago, takes a different approach. His sessions often last more than 90 minutes and integrate body work and massage with the application of needles. 

Because their approaches are quite different, Garnet says his role is more supportive than supervisory. “She's very confident at what she does. I trust her,” he said. “And I'm there to support and overlook and make sure everybody's safe. So far, it's been a dream.”

The practice of inserting very fine needles into points on the body that align with meridians – or energy pathways used in Traditional Chinese Medicine – dates back at least 3,000 years. The points were first described as a mode of diagnosis and treatment in The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine.

Although it’s been around for millennia and different forms are practiced across Asia, acupuncture didn’t enter the therapeutic lexicon in the United States until the 1970s. Since then, it’s gained practitioners, patients and mainstream acceptance. The National Health Interview Survey in 2022 revealed that it’s used by more than 7.5 million people in the U.S. annually.

According to Hargrove and Garnet, the practice is useful for myriad health issues, ranging from back discomfort, to chronic pain and inflammation, to mental health issues such as anxiety or post-traumatic stress (and most maladies in-between). 

Another plus, they say, is that acupuncture treats the whole person. “When we're treating something, we're treating the physical, the mental, the emotional, the spiritual,” Hargrove says. “All of those things can be included in a treatment.”

“Almost any problem can be addressed – can’t always be solved, but it can be addressed,” adds Garnet. “And if we make the tiniest improvement, at least there's hope and they're going in the right direction.”

How does it work? “The honest answer is we don't know,” says Hargrove. “As a matter of fact, science is still trying to figure this out.”

Garnet and Hargrove believe that acupuncture needles stimulate points in the body’s fascia, the thin fibrous sheath that surrounds and protects muscles, bones, organs, nerves and blood vessels. “Most of the points are at crucial places in the fascia structure and fascial intersections,” says Hargrove.

They refer to those pathways as meridians – “like fascial highways, and some are interstates,” says Hargrove – each named for a specific organ. A 2021 study conducted on mice by a team of researchers at Harvard Medical School pointed to a similar conclusion, that acupuncture activates “a specific signaling pathway.”

People often have the misconception that being poked with the delicate steel needles is “like having a shot.” “Actually, it’s pretty painless and so relaxing,” Garnet says. “People come out of here like they’re in a zone.”

Community acupuncture: Frequency bests cleverness

The community acupuncture approach that Hargrove practices is based on the notion that more is better.

“There's another saying that we have in clinic and it's ‘frequency bests cleverness,’” Hargrove explains. “Because when you're working at resetting the body's energy system, especially for things that are intensely acute and painful or chronic, it's really the frequency of coming in that shifts that dial.”

In keeping with that advice, Garnet says he’s been urging his regular patients to take advantage of the community acupuncture clinics between appointments with him.

Hargrove expects to continue her work at Gateway to Vitality for at least another two years. She graduates from school in July 2027, and says it typically takes at least six months after to prepare for the licensure tests.

To sit for the final exams, she’ll need to have seen at least 250 patients and put in 500 hours of practice, although Hargrove says most students end up seeing more than 800 patients.

Sessions are offered on a sliding fee scale of $25-$50, and those payments help Garnet cover the additional costs for such items as chairs, needles, “all the things that make the clinic work.” In addition, OCCA requires Hargrove to use an electronic patient record system (her mentor is “a paper records person”); fees will also help pay for signage and a website.

Neither gets a paycheck – Hargrove can’t get paid until she’s licensed, and Garnet volunteers his time.

“What's in it for me is I get to experience something different and I don't have to put all my energy into it like I do when I work on people,” he says. “The other thing is I'm trying to create something for Polson to continue beyond me. And it's mentally stimulating. It's fun.”

The community clinic model is designed to make acupuncture more affordable and accessible to those familiar with the practice as well as first timers.

“I just want people to know that if they haven't tried it yet, acupuncture doesn't need to be the very last stop on the train,” Hargrove said. “There's help.”

To schedule an appointment, call or text Hargrove at 520-261-4119. Walk-ins are also welcome.