THE PERFECT SPOT
Woman and veteran owned Fitchburg Acupuncture celebrates one year in business
Female entrepreneur Allison Blaisdell recently celebrated the first anniversary of her business, Fitchburg Acupuncture, saying that the city “has been a great place to launch our new brick and mortar business.”
“Our goal is to create no-nonsense, evidence- based treatment plans for patients seeking a more holistic approach to their health and wellness while maintaining a truly integrative medicine approach, collaborating with their , , and other mainstream medical practitioners in the larger community,” the businesswoman said.
Blaisdell was “originally born and raised in the ‘Burg” and after 30 years living in Boston has “come home, bringing my family withme, to build a comprehensive integrative medical practice right in the heart of Fitchburg.”
She has been an acupuncturist and herbalist for over 20 years and is also a certified hypnotherapist and integrative life coach. Her husband, a Boston native and Air Force veteran, is also part of Fitchburg Acupuncture and they have a 14-year- old son who attends Sizer School in their hometown.
“Initially trained as a licensed massage therapist, he is now a reiki master and Quantum-Touch practitioner, seeing clients and teaching reiki to others. Between the two of us, that makes us a woman and veteran owned family business,” Blaisdell proudly said.
She went on to say that while the office building at 21 Culley St. “was a ghost town” when they signed the lease with owner Tammy Morrison of Morrison Real Estate, “we are now part of a lively community that includes other holistic health and wellness practitioners, and their businesses are thriving too.”
“Maria Pappas, LMT and Lucia Antocci, shamanic practitioner, astrologer, and artist are friends of mine that I brought into the space over the past year,” Blaisdell shared. “They have been very successful.”
She brings years of health and wellness experience with her, having worked at Massachusetts General Hospital in conjunction with the Benson henry Institute as the director of Integrative Therapies there and at the dana Farber Cancer Institute treating oncology patients in the hospital setting. In addition, Blaisdell is also an adjunct professor at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy’s acupuncture program in worcester and ran a successful six figure health clinic in the Boston area for many years.
“All licensed acupuncturists must complete an accredited graduate program, three to four years long in most cases, and pass rigorous national board exams before applying for licensure through the Board of Registration in Medicine,” she said.
She said she is “one of the few acupuncturists who broadly accepts health insurance,” including mass health Standard which provides its members with 20 visits per year.
“I was actually lucky enough to be part of a team that was in--
strumental in making that happen for folks,” Blaisdell articulated. “I am a past president of the Acupuncture Society of Massachusetts and one of the major focuses of our work was legislative efforts on Beacon Hill to increase and expand health insurance coverage for patients in the Commonwealth.”
She said she, like many other health practitioners, has noticed an increase in patients dealing with mental health issues and that acupuncture and other services she offers such as cupping can be used to treat all sorts of ailments.
“In more recent years we have seen an uptick in patients coming in for help with mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, and more,” Blaisdell shared. “Acupuncture is an incredibly important modality to integrate in a patient’s care plan. We can treat many, many issues with acupuncture but the opioid crisis really prompted JCAHO (the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations) to endorse it as a first line, non-pharmacological treatment for acute and chronic pain.”
She calls herself and her building colleagues “a Fitchburg success story” — especially because her own beginnings in life were rocky.
“The major reason for my leaving town at 18 was that I came from a very disadvantaged upbringing,” she stated. “My family of origin struggled mightily with poverty, inadequate housing, and mental illness, and things really could’ve turned out very differently for me. Today I have a beautiful, healthy family, a thriving business that’s on track to exceed my revenue goals for the year, and this allows me to give back to the community in other ways, like charitable donations and volunteer time.”
Blaisdell said Fitchburg Acupuncture, a warm and welcoming space, is thriving one year in, and that patients travel from all over the region and New England to seek their services.
“The patients are indeed lining up for treatment, some coming from New Hampshire and as far away as the North Shore, for our classes and services. It seems it’s almost easier to build a business here than it was in the city because we have such an engaged community and networking and word of mouth referrals gain momentum quickly.”
She said she is glad she didn’t listen to those who told her not to open a business in Fitchburg when she was planning to return to her hometown to do just that.
“I was encouraged to look for office space in Leominster, Lunenburg, Westminster, you name it,” Blaisdell said. “I stubbornly refused to consider any locations outside the 01420 and I’d had my heart set on the little brick office building at 21 Culley St. I knew I had to be that building and I knew that if I was going to invest myself in Fitchburg to move back with my family after all these years, I wanted to be ‘all in.’”
“I wanted my business to do well, of course, but I also wanted to make an investment in the city, and I knew from my years of running a successful clinic in the Boston area for many years that people would be willing to travel to me, based on my ex
cellent reviews, reputation, and credentials,” she continued. “I wanted to create something that would bring people to Fitchburg, not bring them out of the city to go somewhere else.”
For more information visit fitchburgacupuncture.com, bostonsbesthypnosistraining.com, and follow Fitchburg Acupuncture on Facebook and Instagram.