WE BELIEVE IN THE POWER OF CHANGE

David LoPriore Sensei, L.Ac. is the Director of our clinic. He is a master acupuncturist who specializes in advanced comprehensive treatments for complex, chronic conditions, often involving mental health, internal medicine and chronic pain. He specializes in working with veterans and first responders but also works with many patients, using primarily acupuncture counseling, and herbal medicine.  See below for more information on Sensei.

Felicia Baker is also a licensed acupuncturist who completed a 5,000 hour apprenticeship with LoPriore Sensei prior to earning her Master’s in Acupuncture at the New England School of Acupuncture. She has a wide range of experience in treating women’s health, pediatrics, chronic pain, veterans’ health (especially PTSD and back pain), and internal medicine such as post operative health. She offers both auricular and full body acupuncture, as well shiatsu Japanese bodywork therapy and moxibustion which allow her to help her patients regardless of their sensitivity level.

Michelle Minnich is an RN nurse wellness coach with 35 years experience, 20 of which were in the army. She has worked at length in hospice and behavioral health as well as many other nursing specialties.  Her work here focuses on wellness coaching, which means she helps patients manage their complex diagnoses, information from doctors, and medications. She also uses evidence-based wellness techniques to help patients find alternatives to some of their medications by working with combinations of mindfulness, diet, exercise, and other strategies. Michelle also provides auricular (ear) acupuncture for wellness, systems-regulation, detoxification, and PTSD. 

Laura Nichols is the massage therapist on our All Star Team. She has vast experience across 20 years and has an exceptional touch that everyone loves. She also has trained with LoPriore Sensei in Shiatsu and incorporate it into massage, especially for acupuncture patients.

CLINIC DIRECTOR SENSEI DAVID LOPRIORE, L.Ac.
The founder and Clinical Director of Acupuncture, Shiatsu and Oriental Medicine of New England is David LoPriore, Licensed Acupuncturist. His title “Sensei” means both “Teacher” and “Doctor/Healer” in Japanese, where it is used as a suffix. LoPriore Sensei has earned this title via 35 years’ training in Asian medicine, meditation, philosophy, energy- and health-building exercises, Japanese yoga and martial arts. He uses this title in the clinic because he has found that patients respond best to treatment when they think of themselves as active “students” of holistic wellness and are disciplined about self-care. Those who simply receive treatments but don’t engage in recommended self-care activities or seek insights into behaviors that may be contributing to their poor health can take longer to heal. This causes longer-term suffering, and can increase the costs of care.

LoPriore Sensei brings a unique integration and training history in Asian arts to the treatments he offers. He has been studying Asian medicine since 1990. For the first eight years, LoPriore Sensei predominantly studied and practiced shiatsu bodywork therapy and ki-waza energy cultivation exercises. He was tremendously fortunate to have a rare one-on-one apprenticeship in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Acupuncture for over three years with master teacher Dr. Yu-Chen Jiao, L.Ac.― a Chinese orthopedic and neurological surgeon and master acupuncturist. LoPriore Sensei trained with Dr. Jiao for over 4,000 hours, as compared with the approximate 1,300 hours’ instruction most acupuncturists undertake for their Masters degree. LoPriore Sensei passed the NCCAOM national acupuncture boards in 1998 and became a Licensed Acupuncturist in Connecticut.

Always interested in working deeply with the mental and behavioral health, LoPriore Sensei took an advanced two year course from 2001-2003 in Five Elemental Constitutional Medicine. This course also gave him a deeper understanding of traditional Eight Principle medicine, and Dr. Shen’s advanced Pulse Diagnosis system. LoPriore Sensei began martial arts training in 1984, and shortly thereafter became interested in Zen Buddhism and meditation. He has been studying Buddhist meditation and philosophy ever since. The non-religious influence of advanced mindfulness training and Asian medical-based wellness counseling he offers are a unique and very important aspect of the medicine he practices.

From Dr. Jiao, he learned an unwavering commitment to diagnosis and treatment of the patient, especially in the areas of internal medicine and chronic pain relief. He also learned how to integrate eastern and western medical thought. From his two-year course in Dr. Shen’s pulse diagnosis method and Five Elemental Constitutional Medicine, he learned a great deal about deeper diagnosis and psychological and behavioral health as they relate to holistic treatment. Interestingly, the internal ki-waza (energy and intention) practices of advanced Daito Ryu martial arts have allowed LoPriore Sensei to develop and utilize a style of acupuncture needling which requires no retention of needles in patients. These gentle methods yield exceptional clinical results, especially in the areas of psychological and behavioral work, chronic pain relief and proactive holistic wellness. He also practices no-needle pediatrics based on Daito Ryu ki-waza.