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.