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Transcription: Episode #1- Get To Know The Angry Acupuncturist – Dominic Sembello, L.Ac.
Disclaimer: The below is an auto-generated transcription from today’s podcast. Typos and grammatical errors are possible.
Announcer 0:00
Welcome to the Health Unlimited Podcast, the only podcast that unlocks your unlimited health potential. Here’s your host, Dominic Sembello.
Charlie McDermott 0:11
Well welcome everyone, Charlie McDermott, producer of the show and co-host today anyway until Dominic fires me, but fortunately, I have Dominic Sembello, L.Ac. with us, Dominic, how are you doing?
Dominic Sembello 0:24
Hey, Charlie, how are you doing?
Charlie McDermott 0:26
I’m doing great. And but the important part is, you’re here and you can help folks feel great. And we’ll get into that, because you have a very unique way of doing that, as you well know. I was in the health club business for decades. And I was very passionate about helping people. You know, I unfortunately, I think we met we, which was great help a lot of folks who are already healthy kind of maintain that health. But as you know, better than i There are scores of folks that, you know, and maybe unhealthy isn’t the right word. But folks who’ve just are suffering unnecessarily and a lot of pain. So congratulations, that you found the time to do this. With your schedule, that was a challenge in and of itself. And I’m really excited to learn some things here. And more importantly, to get the word out. So welcome. And you know, I, I heard something on the street, and I just want to check this this May. Maybe this is not the best way to start a podcast, but I heard someone refer to you as the angry acupuncture, is there any truth to that.
Dominic Sembello 1:39
That’s, I can’t believe you heard that story. I’m a little embarrassed. But yes, people say that because, well, it’s kind of a funny story. I’m Irish and Italian. So I’m very passionate. And I’m really passionate about helping people, right. So the gist is like, I’m angry. I’m angry that people have been suffering for so long. It makes me angry that like, someone comes in with a problem that they’ve had for 10 or 15 or 20 years. So I always joke. They’re like, you’re so passionate. My staff says, like, you’re so angry, but I said I am because it really upsets me. And so it’s sort of like a little nickname that kind of goes around the office here.
Charlie McDermott 2:14
I love it. I love
Dominic Sembello 2:18
What I’m doing what I do. But it’s the nickname that they kind of could joke about in the office. Yeah,
Charlie McDermott 2:23
Yeah, yeah, it speaks volumes about what you do and your passion. I think that’s important. You know, we’re fortunate, I know, you love what you’re doing. And I’m in that same club. But the vast majority of individuals aren’t. And it’s hard to put your heart and soul into something that you just aren’t passionate about. So I think whether you’re Irish or Italian, or any other nationality, it comes down to being passionate and wanting bottom line to help people and you can’t fake that. I mean that just as
Dominic Sembello 2:59
You’re in the wrong profession, especially in my profession, if you don’t really care about helping people, you need to get out.
Charlie McDermott 3:06
Yeah, yeah. So fortunately,
Dominic Sembello 3:08
You’re in and I’m in 21 years.
Charlie McDermott 3:13
And we have listeners because of your longevity and really the legend that you’re establishing there in South Jersey. I know you have a lot of listeners who already familiar with you, but we have the other side people who don’t know you and what you’ve been doing. So let’s start there. Dominic, fill the listeners in your background and what you’re doing there in South Jersey.
Dominic Sembello 3:33
Yeah, so I’m down here by the Jersey Shore, kind of outside the outskirts of Atlantic City, New Jersey. And I’ve been practicing down in this area for about 21 years. And helping the local community get better Live better have a better life.
Charlie McDermott 3:48
Yeah, yeah. And, and for those listening and in our in tree, but all they know of acupuncture. And I know we’ll get into this in future episodes, but I’m sure you hear this all the time, you know, oh, is it gonna hurt? sounds painful? How can I even you know, get me out of pain when it just sounds so painful. You know? What do you say to that?
Dominic Sembello 4:14
Well, I will tell you this. The two most common questions are does acupuncture hurt? That’s probably the number one. The second one is does my insurance cover it? That’s number two. These are all topics we could talk about separately. But to answer your quickly, it does not hurt. Yeah. So I always let that people know it does not hurt.
Charlie McDermott 4:37
And in fact that me maybe I’m talking out of school, it could be relaxing. I mean, it’s actually very
Dominic Sembello 4:42
Relaxing. Yeah. It’s the opposite of what you think the really the the acupuncture itself. They’re called needles. They really should be called pins. But that’s just not their historical name, because they’re very, extremely thin, and they’re solid. So unlike a hypodermic needle You know, when you give blood or get blood drawn that’s hollow, and it’s pulling out it’s extracting blood or injecting something into your system. These are so thin, literally a few hairs, that when it pin penetrates the skin, it just goes in real quick and it’s painless. Yeah, so that’s why it’s it’s more like a pin than a needle.
Charlie McDermott 5:21
Yep. Yeah, that’s a great explanation. So your journey? I mean, was this something that you woke up one day and said, Wow, you know, I this is something I want to get into, or maybe you had to treatment Dawn, or maybe as a kid, someone in your family or someone you knew was an acupuncturist. Tehsil. But but how you you found that this profession?
Dominic Sembello 5:44
Yes, sure. So about well, as a high school and collegiate athlete, I played soccer. So I’ve always been into health and fitness. And my background in sports medicine, which I went to college for, I always have just been, I’ve always tended toward just knowing like, your body has an unlimited and amazing capability. For example, it’s one of the best machines that actually gets stronger as you use it. Right? You’d use your brain more, you can get better cognitive function, you start lifting heavy weights, you know, doing bicep curls, your biceps get stronger. That’s an amazing capacity. And our body has that capacity. And I’ve always just been fascinated with it. Acupuncture was never really in the forefront. But health health was. And then when I was getting closer to graduating from college, I said, What are the next steps and I thought about, you know, several different opportunities, perhaps medical school, physical therapy, chiropractic. And I always just kind of say, acupuncture found me. I had never had, but it was the most intriguing to me. Because I was curious to like, Why does sticking a needle in someone help? Right? And like, this has been around for 1000s of years. It’s still around, like, what I don’t even understand. I didn’t even know anyone before going to school that it had you really interested me enough to at least go to school. And I said, worst case scenario, if I don’t like it. I will do it I ever I’d already graduated from college. And you know, but when I got into school, I realized the potential and seeing patients in the clinic coming in with all these chronic conditions, and seeing their stories and their journeys. And I was like, wow, this is real powerful stuff. And here I am 21 years later.
Charlie McDermott 7:39
And your education hasn’t stopped. I mean, it wasn’t just you went to school, and then opened up the practice. I mean, you’re you’re still involved on a regular basis on the educational side, correct.
Dominic Sembello 7:52
Always looking to get better. So it’s not that the acupuncture gets better, but there’s some new ways and different things to add more modern solutions into a preexisting long history of acupuncture. So really, acupuncture is what we call traditional medicine, although not really in this country. But it really is traditional in the sense of it’s been around the longest. Our newer medicine we use, here’s more modern medicine, but this is actually traditional and has a long history of showing that it’s effective.
Charlie McDermott 8:22
Yeah, yeah. We as humans, we I think we like to complicate things, you know, you, you find something that works and you go, okay, great. Now let’s go find something else that maybe is more complicated requires medication and in pharmacies, and God knows what, nothing against medication. It’s important. But like you said, you started out I mean, hey, if our bodies can heal itself, why Lean on a pill or potion that’s going to have all these side effects? Why not just see if the body can do it first? Right?
Dominic Sembello 8:58
And it can, it has an amazing potential. It’s just your for one, it’s not discussed as much again in this country. Now, as I said, I’ve been doing this for 21 years, it’s certainly come so far from when I first started out. I have many doctors and specialists in the area that refer to me now. And it has come a long way. There’s still a long way to go. Most of the people that I see and treat are people where they’ve been doctor to doctor and they’ve gone seeing specialists after specialists and they’ve had medications that didn’t help or had terrible side effects or they had lots of surgeries or procedures or all these other things, and they’re still suffering. And that’s really Unfortunately, most of the time when they show up in my office. That’s what I’m seeing. And it’s that’s what makes me angry, the angry acupuncturist because they, you know, they’re suffering for so long and then chronic pain or just even chronic autoimmune can do issues and just lots of things where, you know, in our, in the United States, we’re really good at acute trauma, and you know, emergency services and technology. But really, we still lack in chronic treating chronic problems. We, you know, it’s just medication, it just were not the neon seats, or just I say Modern medicine is still not very good at treating those things. These are things that might not kill someone. Right? It might not be like that it is more just, again, taking medications like, well, those give me horrible side effects. And so people can’t take those. So that’s really, you know, again, that’s what makes me upset or angry, as they call it, because those people are the ones that really are struggling to find solutions. And that’s why they, when they come to the office, they found.
Charlie McDermott 10:54
Yeah, which leads us to really the next question. And you and I have talked off, Mike about your back to your passion and the need to get this out there and help educate folks. But you know, from from your kind of point of view, Dominic that the why, why are you doing the podcast?
Dominic Sembello 11:14
Yeah, I think I think it’s really important. The why is because I can reach more people to let people know, you know, I’m in South Jersey, and obviously, treating people in my clinic, I’m seeing people that are in a general, you know, facility, geographic area. But with this, I want to let people know, there are options out there and people don’t have to suffer. That’s kind of why the health unlimited podcast was developed, is because you do have unlimited potential, and health in many ways, not all, but many ways is a choice that you can get better. That does not mean perfect, that means better, a better life, better day to day living, enjoying hobbies, that you enjoy family, friends loved ones, that is what I call living. And that’s the most important part is you want to live the best you can every day as long as possible.
Charlie McDermott 12:12
Love it, love it,
Dominic Sembello 12:14
Which is why for you, you are in the healthcare right in the fitness world. It’s the same thing. And it’s something I focus on too is like exercise is really important for longevity and health. So I know with your background as well, you know exactly, you know, what I’m talking about?
Charlie McDermott 12:32
Yeah, amen. And being pain is such, I mean, it incapacitates you it even if even if you’re still able to function, which obviously many most people are, it can suck the life out of you, if impacts your mood, your energy level, your quality of life, you can’t do the things that you wanted to do or used to do and should still be doing it. I don’t care what your age is.
Dominic Sembello 12:58
How about. Sorry, how about the other factors affecting loved ones, spouses, children, because you can’t be there? Or because you don’t feel good? It’s hard. And so it’s not just a you thing? It’s a it affects everyone, and all aspects of your life?
Charlie McDermott 13:19
Yeah, you’re right. So from a what we’re doing down the road future episodes, what do you have in mind for
Dominic Sembello 13:26
Future episodes, I’d like to share you know, some stories I hope to get maybe some patients on board, some that maybe aren’t as shy, because we have so many great stories that we could share whether everyone wants to do it, I’ll find out. But hopefully we’ll get a couple of people to come in and some of these episodes and share their story and experience because if they can do it, everyone can do it. But more importantly, them sharing their stories so powerful to help others. And that’s how I always try to talk to my patients. If you share your story, you could be saving or helping someone that was in the exact situation you were. So hopefully they’ll be on board, we’ll have various different health topics, you know, we can dive in a little bit more. And just, you know, some what I call the frequently asked questions versus the should ask questions. Because I think people need to know what they should be asking. And not the frequently asked frequently answer ones that come up. But I’m going to tell people the more important questions what they should be asking if they were ever to seek out acupuncture services, no matter where you are. Yeah, yeah. And a whole lot more fun stuff. Hopefully, Charlie?
Charlie McDermott 14:38
Yeah, for sure. For sure. Again, this Yeah, but you make a good point. You know, the should ask questions. I mean, hey, if if I were to see an acupuncturist, down here, right where I’m based in Florida, I had no idea of what to even ask. So yeah, that’s gonna be really helpful. Yeah.
Dominic Sembello 14:58
Yeah, I wrote a little e-book on on that too, I think I have to dig out now the archives it might be on my website, I’m not even sure what’s called the seven most important things to ask because not all acupuncturist are created equal. There’s different trainings and there’s different things you want to ask. And as I said, we can go in all those in future in detail.
Charlie McDermott 15:19
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Well, for our listeners, and I know I know your YouTube video audience can see your website and phone number but for our listeners who cannot take when you’re in the South Jersey area, or for that matter anywhere and you want to learn more and and get that report, Dominic’s website is Health Source acupuncture.com. and phone number is 609-745-1216. Dominic, I think you just finished your first episode. Congrats, man.
Dominic Sembello 15:55
Thanks, Charlie. I look forward to getting a really getting rolling into the nitty gritty of things because there’s a whole lot to share.
Charlie McDermott 16:03
We have a lot to talk about. And you know, we’ll we’ll have to decide each episode which personality shows up. Is it Dr. Dominic? Or is it the angry acupuncturist?
Dominic Sembello 16:14
I guess we’re gonna have to find out which one depends on the day. I love it.
Charlie McDermott 16:21
I love it. Well, hey, you have a good one and we’ll see in the next episode. Okay, sounds good. Charlie.
Dominic Sembello 16:25
Take care.
Announcer 16:26
Thanks for listening to the Health Unlimited Podcast. To learn more about Dominic or his private practice, go to www.HealthSourceAcupuncture.com