Lake Tahoe, California
Ohana joined Elevate Wellness Center in April 2015 and I couldn’t be happier to share my days with the amazing practitioners there. Elevate Wellness Center is South Lake Tahoe’s premier holistic health center. We combine the ancient wisdom of Traditional Chinese Medicine with the latest research on functional medicine. We use bodywork techniques to relieve you of your discomforts but also provide movement therapy to help prevent your injury from reoccurring.
I have the honor of working with incredible practitioners here that are a wonderful compliment to your pregnancy.
Their Offerings
Elevate offers 3 acupuncture practitioners, Melinda Choy, Jamie and Tracie.
Janine Blanchard is a German osteopath and cranial sacral therapist and she is incredible with newborns and children.
Monica is a magic massage therapist offering cupping and her own unique style of massage that is sure to work out any pregnancy kinks.
Ha Dang is our Naturopath and she offer muscle testing, homeopathy and IV therapy for our mamas needing an extra boost.
Heather Valentine offers structural integration therapy which is a systematic whole body approach to realignment through reorganization of the connective tissue, or fascia matrix within the body.
In addition to our practitioners we have a full Farmacy for supplements and Herb & Moon Apothecary is stocked with organic herbs.
Elevate Wellness Center
2034 Lake Tahoe Blvd
South Lake Tahoe, CA 96150
Melinda Choy LAc. — Acupuncturist
Often I am asked the question, “Why did you decide to become an acupuncturist?” In writing my biography, I decided to answer this question for you.
It’s a long story and it came about from life experiences throughout many years. My simplest answer is that I’m an activist and environmentalist. I graduated from U.C. Santa Barbara with a BA Degree in Political Science and a minor in Global Peace and Security. I received an internship position my senior year in Washington, D.C. with Amnesty International. After a week at my dream internship, my mother came to the end of her battle with cancer.
That experience shook up my world and my perspective on everything. How could I be focused on trying to change the whole world and not be able to affect a single person? I’m not trying to heal people to heal my mother, nor do I think that I could have saved her. It’s only that I saw that healing and change needs to come from deep within. It also needs to come from looking at a dynamic and complex body in physical, emotional, and spiritual planes. My experience with acupuncture has affected my life personally. I think that medicine and healing is a personal journey.
That is the experience that I want to provide for my patients at Elevate Wellness Center. A place for personal healing and growth, whatever it may be: back pain, insomnia, infertility, etc. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) allows for us to see the big picture and the root of disease. TCM is a long tradition of healing that is proven by its growth and popularity over the last 20 years. The science is in the 2000 years of practice and it’s continued success in treating a variety of conditions. I felt that these were the tools that I wanted to have to enrich my life and for those around me.
Elevate Wellness Center provides an opportunity for people to change their lives one step at a time. I strive to create a supportive environment where my patients feel empowered and informed to realize that their health is in their own hands. Making good decisions for your body is making good decisions for our environment on a micro and macrocosmic level. My favorite Thich Nhat Hahn quote is, “Keeping your body healthy is an expression of gratitude to the whole cosmos ~ the trees, the clouds, everything . . .” Thus, I feel accomplished in my work as an activist for the human right of being healthy and an environmentalist.
In case you are interested in everything else that comes along with a bio, here it is. I graduated from Five Branches University in Santa Cruz in 2003 and received a Masters Degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine. I started my practice in South Lake Tahoe in 2004. While in school, I apprenticed with a long time local acupuncturist in Santa Cruz. I also studied at the Zhejiang University in China. I am a Licensed Acupuncturist in the State of California and have my National Certification in Acupuncture and Chinese Herbology.
