Dr Deborah Ma in a white coat, standing at a wall of Chinese herb drawers.
Fewer needles, faster relief

Deborah Ma, PhD, LAc

Ohio, Taiwan, European cruise ships, San Diego, Beijing's leading international hospital, and now San Francisco. I treated princesses of Qatar, celebrities, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu athletes, and farmers in rural China. That's why I believe care should cater to your lifestyle. I take 30 minutes to examine your condition, and read your body like a puzzle instead of checking boxes. I work with modern techniques like FSN and cheek acupuncture that release pain 60% faster than traditional acupuncture.

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PhD from World's Best TCM University China's No1 International Hospital Latest modern techniques

Puzzle Acupuncture  ·  1640 Valencia St, San Francisco

Specialized in solving complicated cases

I enjoy working cross-function with other doctors. At Beijing United Family Hospital, China's top private international hospital, I got referrals from neurology, orthopaedics, obstetrics and pediatrics with difficult cases, chronic conditions, new symptom complaints, a facial paralysis over 10 years. Acupuncture is the missing piece of the puzzle for healing.

Dr Deb Ma in a white coat with a Norwegian Cruise Line name badge, photographed against the ship's painted blue backdrop.
Medical officer at the Norwegian Cruise Line, across the Mediterranean Sea.

My diverse path has shaped me into something different from a typical TCM doctor. What it produced:

  • 45 to 60 patients a week at Beijing United Family Hospital, where I was the Chinese medicine department. 80% adults, 20% children.
  • Built the postpartum programme there, 60% of my caseload: postpartum depression, urinary retention, lactation insufficiency, mastitis.
  • Neurological referrals other departments had turned down, including a lower-limb paralysis from nerve compression and a facial paralysis of ten years.
  • Attending physician in TCM pediatrics in China: muscular torticollis, immune deficiency, acute respiratory infection, pneumonia.
  • 15+ talks for the British Embassy, Boston Consulting Group and Lululemon.
  • 70 to 80 patients a week as a medical officer on Norwegian Cruise Line, and a 70-page book of testimonials.
The route

My journey across the world has taught me

healing happens best when blend wisdom from different traditions with genuine understanding of each person's unique life.

Born Ohio

Born in the United States.

From age six Taiwan

Grew up there, and took a BS in Animal Science before any of the medicine.

2002 – 2007 Beijing

Bachelor, Department of Chinese Medicine, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine.

2007 – 2008 California

MS, Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, South Baylo University.

2008 – 2011 Beijing

PhD in Medicine, back at Beijing University of Chinese Medicine.

2012 – 2014 Europe

Ship's TCM physician, Norwegian Cruise Line, across the Mediterranean Sea.

2014 – 2019 Beijing

Jensin TCM Clinic, treating the city's expat community.

2019 – 2020 San Diego

Her own clinic, Roots & Needles. One year in California.

2020 – 2025 Beijing

Oasis International Hospital, then Beijing United Family Hospital.

2025 – now San Francisco

Puzzle Acupuncture, 1640 Valencia Street.

Two techniques, and very few needles

Classical acupuncture is the layer under almost everything she does. The two techniques below sit on top of it, both were invented in China in the 1990s, and between them they are the reason a first session is usually shorter and lighter than people expect.

Cheek acupuncture

Illustration pairing a drawn profile of a face with a drawn human body. Sixteen numbered points on the cheek are joined by fine orange lines to the region each one stands for: head, neck, shoulder, upper jiao, upper back, elbow, middle jiao, lower back, lower jiao, sacrum, wrist, hip, hand, knee, ankle and foot.

A standardised map of sixteen points on each cheek, needled shallowly, a few at a time, to treat pain elsewhere in the body. It is not cosmetic facial acupuncture and it is not what people brace for: most describe it as lighter than ordinary needling, because the needles are shallow and there are not many of them.

A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis of 40 randomised trials in 3,009 patients reported better pain outcomes and fewer adverse reactions than the control treatments, and asked for larger, higher-quality trials. Dr Deb holds the Level 3 certificate.

How cheek acupuncture works

50% of the pain will be gone during the 1st treatment.

FSN needling

Illustration of the muscles of the upper back seen from behind, with an FSN needle entering at the top of the shoulder. An enlarged cross-section beside it shows the needle lying flat in the myofascial layer between the skin and the muscle. Cross-section of skin comparing two needles. A traditional acupuncture needle goes straight down through epidermis, dermis and myofascial layer into the muscle. The FSN needle enters at a shallow angle and stops in the layer above the muscle.
FSN needling can release a much larger area of tension.

FSN is Fu's Subcutaneous Needling, developed in China in the mid-1990s. The needle goes in at a shallow angle and stays in the loose layer under the skin, above the muscle. She sweeps it gently side to side while guiding you through specific movements, and the muscle group lets go.

It is for a whole tight area rather than one sore point: chronic neck, shoulder and low back pain, trigger points, overuse, posture, training load, the guarding that stress leaves in a muscle. The release is quick, and she re-tests your range of motion before you are off the table, so the session answers its own question.

FSN is a treatment you take part in. You work while you are on the table, pushing against her hand, holding a position, moving the joint through its range, while she sweeps the needle and reads what the tight area does under load. The needle opens the layer. The movement is what releases it. Dr Deb holds the FSN certificate.

How FSN needling works

Where it is practised now

Chinese medicine is evolving and innovating in China, while TCM study in the US is limited by market size and lack of resources

In the United States acupuncture is mostly a cash-pay service outside the hospital system. In China it is a hospital specialty, with departments inside general hospitals, staffed by people who trained as physicians first.

Where insurance covers it here at all, it covers pain, and sometimes fertility. Coverage decides who walks through the door.

An acupuncture clinic in the US Roughly what gets paid for, and so roughly what walks in
  • Pain
  • Sometimes fertility
  • Beauty & skin care

The field here did not choose that shortlist. Billing did, and a practitioner only gets good at what keeps arriving.

A Chinese medicine hospital in China Departments, the way any hospital has departments
  • Paediatrics
  • Digestion
  • Dermatology
  • Gynaecology
  • Neurology
  • Oncology

People take a child with a cough to one of those, or a rash, or a stomach that has never been right.

That difference in scope decides where the knowledge accumulates, and the gap shows plainly in the literature.

Chinese TCM doctors' training is 3X longer compared to the US training
ChinaUnited States
Licensed practitioners Chinese medicine physicians in China; licensed acupuncturists in the US China 971,000 United States 34,000 Dedicated Chinese medicine hospitals Full hospitals, not clinics China 6,397 United States None Years of training before independent practice Degree plus supervised hospital residency China 8 years United States about 3 years

Practitioner counts are the closest available match: China licenses Chinese medicine physicians, a broader category than the acupuncture-only licence issued in the United States.

I read the Chinese literature because that is where the work is being done. Most of it is never translated, and almost none of it reaches a clinic here.

Outside the clinic

I ferment things

I won a homebrew beer competition for my milk stout (ranked 3.99 on Untappd). I created ginger beers that got popular. At one point, I was remembered as the one who created strawberry flavor ginger beers among the brewing circle. I ferment natto, pickles, plum wine, ghee, and even stinky tofu. I love the San Francisco Homebrewers Guild. Fermenting is seriously fun.

Hand-drawn flyer reading Dr. Deb's Probiotic Soda, a ginger root crossed with a bloody orange, both wearing sunglasses, above the words naturally fermented, non-alcoholic, vegan, gluten free, probiotic
Dr Deb Ma in her kitchen, lifting a forkful of natto out of a glass bowl and watching the strands pull.
Hand-drawn jar of a ginger bug fermenting under a cloth lid tied with string
Hand-drawn tumbler of pale yellow ginger drink
Dr Deb Ma on a brewery tour, climbing the stairs between two copper brewing kettles

The flyer and the two drawings are mine. The jar is a ginger bug, the starter the soda is built on, and the glass is what it turns into. The natto is a separate project. The photograph is a brewery tour.

Come in and tell her what hurts

The free consult is a conversation, not a treatment. She will tell you whether this is something she can help with, and what it would take.

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