Meet Niki Juralewicz, an acupuncture provider at Duke Integrative Medicine

Meet Niki Juralewicz, an acupuncture provider at Duke Integrative Medicine. Niki uses a wide variety of techniques and styles to create custom treatment plans. These include acupuncture, classical cupping and gua sha, which promotes circulation, to inspire healing.

She spends a lot of time with clients to get to the root cause of an individual’s health concerns. Her ultimate goal is for her clients to live their best lives with balance and wellness.

Niki is available for appointments at Duke Integrative Medicine on Saturdays from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

Learn more about Niki and her background as a dancer and her experience working in a variety of settings from Integrative clinics to a drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility.

1. Tell us a little about yourself and how you became a licensed acupuncturist.

Niki Juralewicz, an acupuncture provider at Duke Integrative Medicine.

I am a licensed acupuncturist with a private practice in Durham, and I also work at LifeConnections Health Center, an integrative clinic at Cisco. Originally, from Massachusetts, I spent 18 years in New York City and was a professional modern dancer with the Trisha Brown Dance Company. I discovered acupuncture as a way to keep me healthy in my physically demanding dance career, and I soon realized it helped me in so many other ways. It felt like such a natural transition to come to acupuncture as a second career in life.

2. You have a background as a tai chi practitioner and as a modern dancer. How do these specialty areas affect your work?

Dancing is all about the movement of energy, form and breath, and communication with deep, inner pathways. That is exactly one definition of acupuncture. Early in my acupuncture studies, I reconnected with tai chi and later tai chi sword form. Tai chi is a cultivating practice to enhance health and express vital energy in movement.

When dancing with people, you have to follow and lead at the same time. An acupuncture treatment is also about leading and following the energy and the patient’s response. It’s a healing relationship. In a treatment, following a patient’s breath is like moving to music in dance.

Our skills as acupuncturists are very subtle. Being able to listen quietly is imperative. In the treatment room, dance and tai chi help me with the sensory skills needed for acupuncture diagnosis. They help me listen to a patient’s energy and be sensitive to a patient’s internal movements. Through dance and tai chi, I bring my health and vitality to share with others.

Dancing is all about the movement of energy, form and breath, and communication with deep, inner pathways. That is exactly one definition of acupuncture.

3. How does acupuncture heal and change lives?

Acupuncture is more than treating physical symptoms, though it helps with those. Treatment can open up blocks that are in the way of a person’s healing and which impede their relationship to life and to others. What begins as a concern over symptoms often transforms into deep personal healing that reaches beyond the physical condition. Acupuncture treats the whole person: emotional, spiritual and physical and gives people a window into possibilities in their life. It holds the power of manifestation.

4. Can you share a life-changing story about one of your clients responding to acupuncture?

I used to work at a drug and alcohol treatment center doing acupuncture. Seeing patients recover from their substance abuse and enter their journey into freedom has been one of the most satisfying experiences for me. What I love about being an acupuncturist the most is seeing people’s lives transform.

5. What do you wish people knew about acupuncture? Especially those who have never experienced it?

I would like people to know that acupuncture doesn’t hurt. There can be a wide range of sensations, though, such as warming, gathering, spreading and bursting.

An acupuncturist stimulates points on the skin to relieve symptoms and enhance health. The greatest reason to begin acupuncture treatment is to recover and cultivate the tremendous healing power of your body. Everyone can benefit from acupuncture, especially considering the stresses of our modern culture. Acupuncture has stood the test of time for well over 2,000 years, and it still works. It is ancient healing for modern concerns.

It is important to know that acupuncture is a process, and that healing happens over time. It is a collaboration between my patients and me.

6. What can a new client expect at a first acupuncture session with you?

Patients can expect my undivided attention, respect, and unbiased ear. We sit and talk. I hear and listen. We talk about all aspects of their lifestyle and their specific health concerns. We then discuss goals and outcomes. I do a differential diagnosis and a treatment, using needles and/or cupping and guasha. Most people find acupuncture treatments deeply relaxing.