Milwaukee Community Acupuncture's Susan Johnston
Milwaukee Community Acupuncture (MCA; 435 E. Lincoln Ave.) announced a new partnership with local veteran’s outreach group, Dryhootch, which will provide a free service to veterans who can benefit from the healing of acupuncture. MCA’s Susan Johnston played a lead role in the initiative. A graduate of Pacific College of Oriental Medicine, Johnston volunteered in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, doing acupuncture for those affected in the tragedy. She also had a private practice in Glendale before realizing her passion for working with other acupuncturists in group settings.
How did the partnership with Dryhootch come to be?
The last three Julys we’ve done a special for veterans and those active in the military with $10 treatments all month. It gave us a tiny piece of treating veterans and we found it was really helpful for those that did come. We were looking into reaching that community more and seeing if we could become an asset for them. Olive Crane (MCA’s co-founder) and I had known about Dryhootch and thought the organization was really amazing in all of the work that they do for veterans. We reached out and contacted them to see if they would be interested in us coming and helping out and doing free acupuncture for the vets.
What specific service will you be giving to the veterans?
We do ear acupuncture points (called the NADA protocol), which originally was done out east as a detoxification program. This protocol was used as an alternative to methadone. It was an outpatient clinic where people would come every single day to get these points and it would help with detoxification. Over time, they’ve been doing those points on a lot of people and have found that it’s not only helpful for detox but it’s also helpful for PTSD, sleep issues, anxiety and a lot of these things that vets come back facing.
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These five points, given on each outer ear, are meant to balance the body mentally and physically. It’s very simple, but very powerful. The reason I think it’s so wonderful at Dryhootch is because they already have a community of people and a camaraderie. It’s all different ages and races and everybody is so different there, but they all have this common thread, and it’s really neat just to be there and to do those treatments and bring everyone together on another level.
When and where can veterans get this service?
We actually started in January, where we signed up for three months, and we’ve signed up for another three months after that from April through June as well. We are at Dryhootch (4801 W. National Ave.) on the first Tuesday of each month from 10-11 a.m. and the third Wednesday of each month from 9:30-10:30 a.m. for anyone that wants treatment.
