Hi - I'm Andy Smith.
A fully qualified acupuncturist and Chinese Medicine practitioner, working across Swindon, Lechlade and the Cotswolds.
I first trained at the Bristol College of Naturopathic Medicine, graduating in Traditional Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture in 2021. Since then, I’ve kept learning and expanding my skills with further training in things like cupping, moxibustion and other Chinese medical techniques. I like to bring it all together - a proper holistic approach that looks at the whole person, not just the symptoms.
I’m a proud member of the Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture (ATCM), which means I follow strict safety and ethical standards.
My treatments blend both Eastern and Western ways of understanding the body. Every session is tailored to the person in front of me - helping you get out of pain, find balance and feel more like yourself again. I’ve got quite a calm, grounded approach, and I genuinely care about the people I treat. Over time, that’s built a lovely base of clients across Swindon, Lechlade and the wider Cotswolds who keep coming back because they trust the process - and because it works.
My Story
I was drawn to acupuncture through an injury. I was heavily into yoga and one evening had travelled to Bristol to try acro-yoga. I fell, landed heavily on my left hand and jarred my wrist. I called up my trusted physician at the time, the brilliant Donna Kim Totfield to book a massage. She could usually fix anything, a genius. But not this time. She suggested acupuncture to me. So I made an appointment at the Wood street clinic to see the acupuncturist there. She asked me loads of weird questions, like my favourite colour and stuck very thin needles in me. It didn’t hurt at all, in fact it was very relaxing. I remember walking down the corridor to leave, I got in my car and I think I must of taken me about 45 minutes to get home, barring in Mind I was living in Wootton Bassett at the time which is maybe 20 minutes away and then, totally spaced out, I fell asleep on the sofa and slept soundly for 4 hours. I woke up and I was pain free! And that was it. I was intrigued! This was actual magic!
About Me…
This is my passion. I’ve studied for 4 years to practice acupuncture and under took more body work courses before that, and I continue to study and will continfue to do so.
I believe in natural, grass roots healing over a pharmaceutical symptom management that only leads to further complications with prolonged use.
Before training in acupuncture I worked as an electrician around the Cotswolds, rewiring big old houses, replacing storage heaters in retirement homes, changing lamps in high bay fittings in warehouses.
Before my ‘acupuncture journey’ I’ve been accustomed to working with electricity.
I wire a light, there is a logic to whether I have been effective or not.
If I have, the light switches on and off.
If I have not been effective, the light’s state does not change.
I make the same true for my acupuncture work with my clients.
Some believe acupuncture is a placebo.
I want you to be the judge.
Does your digestion feel better?
Are you sleeping better?
Does your shoulder have a better range of motion?
Has the pain reduced?
Can you feel the difference?
Don’t worry about Qi and channels if it doesn’t interest you.
The understanding of these things will help you to live pain free, true.
But I can explain this to you, to cut through all that dodgy sounding ‘woo-woo’ ‘hippy stuff’ that you might not care about.
I care about it. It’s a tradition that has been passed down for 5000 years,it is important to me, but I won’t preach it to you.
At the end of the day, do you FEEL better and is YOUR pain gone??
That’s what counts to you and that’s what matters to me.
Period.
Continual learning
So, this is a Big. Like, REALLY BIG subject! The theories and ideas behind acupuncture are vast. The models applied to acupuncture in China were also applied to governing the country (in the past) as well as farming and many other of the valuable infrastructures. Models such as 5 elements, the I Ching, the Taoist book of changes, one of the oldest books ever written.
Philosophical thought has been key in its formation. Taoist and Confucianism both are present in the writings of key texts and the Classics of Chinese medicine.
I’ve amassed a small library of Chinese medicine from second hand sources throughout my study, and I’m slowly working my way through actually reading them, finally.
I regularly purchase and watch short courses on line from teachers who I admire and wish to be as effective and well known as, throughout their community, so I can get the practical practice and ‘learn’ my craft, in the real world.
As every driver knows; you pass your driving test when you’re safe. Then you Learn to drive when you’re out on the road.
My latest motivation is driving me to London. To undertake the Daoist Acupuncture Apprenticeship at the London College of Acupuncture and Natural Medicine.
It’s an 18 month course that will require an over night stay in London. It’s not a cheap undertaking, by any means. But what is? The knowledge will increase my treatment skill by an unimaginable factor! But it’s also an ‘immersion’ into Daoism.
A leap in evolution. An unimaginable chance to make real change.
I’ve already increased my skill level, beyond the scope of my original course, and I expect there is still much more I can learn from those basics. But I’ll return to them when the timing isn’t so ripe for this advancement.
Community clinic
This is also a good time, and space to speak about running a community clinic.
The idea behind this is to expand my reach to people who don’t feel they have the resources to afford my private clinic fees. This is fine by me, the idea is to treat people effectively and efficiently and learn how to do it, which can only be done by getting needles in people and seeing how they react.
The money, which is a driver, I’m not so self righteous to say the money doesn’t matter, it does in this current social-economic climate.
So, yeah, community clinic!
The idea isn’t a new one in acupuncture.
The idea is; to use as many beds as there are available, get people on them who are in pain and then treat them using the points from the knees and elbows down to at least get them into some level of comfort, and then talk to them about their underlying condition.
Acupuncture is known about in the west of England, but many people fear the needles, whether that’s pain or another trauma from their childhood. Whether people still believe it to be a placebo or some BS, or something that is out of their price range, and why should they? There’s a perfectly good NHS to keep them well, Right?!
And who can blame them? The idea of having someone cure an illness with small (and sometimes, not so small needles!) is laughable in the age of the ‘germ’ and ‘vaccine’.
So, community clinic, £30 an hour at the Health Box, Lechlade. Hopefully see you there.