ENTERPRISE — There’s a new acupuncturist in Enterprise, now that Terry Atchley has taken over Eagle Cap Wellness across from Safeway.

Atchley replaced Jamie Kimball on Sept. 12, when Kimball moved to Bermuda with her husband, who got a job installing solar panels there.

“When I found out that she was moving, I took the opportunity to come out here,” she said.

Originally from New Orleans, she spent a dozen years in Portland and nearly the past 10 doing acupuncture there.

But during that time, she also had the opportunity to travel to Nepal twice with the Vancouver, Washington-based Acupuncture Relief Project, a nonprofit health care project to assist in countries with little access to health care.

Now she’s in Enterprise.

Acupuncture is considered a form of alternative medicine and a component of traditional Chinese medicine in which thin needles are inserted into the body to relieve various ailments.

It can “stimulate the central nervous system to release hormones or help the body heal or help the body be in a balanced state,” Atchley said. “Acupuncture can help the body recalibrate and rebalance.”

Although it’s not considered conventional medicine, she said she does work with physicians, chiropractors, massage therapists and physical therapists.

In fact, she’s working on becoming certified in sports medicine, after which she’ll be able to add that to her practice.

“We work in a comprehensive way,” she said. “Every provider ultimately is trying to get a patient into a healthy state, so we’re another resource for that.”

In sports medicine, she said, acupuncture can be of a particular help on the musculoskeletal parts of the body.

“A lot of people don’t seem to know the variety of ailments that it can help with,” she said. “You can see how someone’s posture can play into various ailments in the body.”

Some of the ailments acupuncture can relieve include neck pain, insomnia, anxiety, back pain and breathing trouble.

“You’re coming in for back pain, but there are all these other ailments you’re dealing with and are connected,” she said.

Posture is one of the conditions she hopes to correct.

“A lot of it is how we spend our day, whether we’re all scrunched down,” she said.

With poor posture, she said, the muscles on the front of the torso get shortened and the ones on the back get elongated.

“We try to soften the front side and strengthen the back side so it’s not such a struggle to sit in an upright position,” she said.

But it’s not all about where she pokes the needles.

“It won’t necessarily sustain unless the patient does some at-home treatment work,” she said.

“A person can come in and feel better after treatment, but if they don’t go home and do the strengthening exercises and change some of the things that are causing the ailment, they’re going to revert right back. There is a little bit of patient involvement because ultimately, we are in control of our status.”

Atchley says part of her practice is to recommend at-home exercises for patients.

“It’s what we can do here, but it’s also what the patient can do at home, as well,” she said.

As she’s getting started, Atchley said she’s eager to build a client base and work with medical professionals.

“Come on in and check us out,” she said.

Who: Terry Atchley, licensed acupuncturist

Where: Eagle Cap Wellness, 616 W. North St., Enterprise

Phone: 541-398-8318

Email: eaglecapwellness@gmail.com

Online: https://www.eaglecapwellness.com/, Facebook and Instagram

Hours: Monday 8 a.m.-7 p.m., Tuesday 8 a.m.-4 p.m., Wednesday and Thursday 8 a.m.-6 p.m., Friday 11 a.m.-6:30 p.m.