About Keith McDonald

Keith McDonald, LAc

LICENSED ACUPUNCTURIST

Keith is one of the most experienced therapists in the field and has provided world class rehabilitative care to athletes, artists, and accident victims for over 25 years.

Keith’s personal history has led him to work with athletes with injuries and those who want to enhance their performance, working with artists and musicians with repetitive motion injuries, and those in motor vehicle accidents and other accidents who need rehabilitative bodywork. He combines his experience with acupuncture, moxabustion, and cupping with over 25 years of experience in bodywork to help his patients.

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In 1991 I woke up in a strange room. As I looked around, there were all manner of fancy medical equipment with blinking lights flashing in the darkness. I could hear muffled voices outside the door and was flooded with the acrid chemical smell of sterilization. My mouth was dry as a bone and I had to pee! I rolled out of the bed to go to the bathroom and hit the floor with a thud. Immediately the room was alive with buzzers and alarms and the muffled voices became louder outside the door. I had just rolled onto my back when a nurse, closely followed by two orderlies burst through the door. Where was I? What happened? And why can’t I move my legs???

It took the two orderlies to lift me back onto the bed. When they left the nurse explained to me that I had been in an accident and in a coma for three days and was paralyzed from the waist down. I still remember her voice, soft as a feather in quality, but hard as a 9-pound sledgehammer in what she told me. I can’t be paralyzed, I’m an athlete. I’m young and healthy, and the ski season had just begun. My mind whirled and spun for the next half hour until my parents arrived at the hospital, but their tear streaked faces was the only affirmation I needed that this was indeed true. And, no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t move my legs!

I was an amateur mogul racer with a promising upward trend in my ranking. Skiing was my life. I devoured skiing magazines and watched Greg Stump’s “Blizzard of Ahhhs”, dreaming of being as fearless as Glen Plake or as graceful as Scott Schmidt, dreaming of finding my way into the Olympics as our hometown hero, Dean Cummings, had. Punishing myself with squats and wall sits and sit ups and endless miles of running at altitude. The next day I was gazing through the hospital window at huge snowflakes falling, and my dreams seemed as far away as Mount Olympus. That snow was only a reminder that the life that I had known and loved and thrived in was over.

There’s nothing as debilitating and heartbreaking to an athlete as losing the ability to participate in their sport… To feel their body moving with practiced precision. Athletes live for their time on the field or rink or course or mat or pool and when that is taken from them due to an accident or injury, the mental territory can get dark and lonely. It is a place full of questions and void of answers. Having a supportive medical team surrounding the athlete in this time can make all the difference in the world.

Through the help of a gifted medical team I began to regain sensation, then movement in my legs. First a toe, then an ankle then the bigger muscles in my calves and thighs and hips. I remember using a walker and weakly making it to the end of the corridor before collapsing in exhaustion. I remember resuming my life in college, using a cane to get around. Over the course of that year I became stronger and eventually regained the full use of my legs. And that fall I hit the snow with a renewed passion and enthusiasm! I continued to have successful seasons until 1994, when a broken pelvis ended my competitive career.

Today, I continue to ski and enjoy other activities such as: backpacking, sailing, golfing, scuba diving and yoga. Some may say that my story is a miracle… And in a way it is! It’s a miracle because it lead me to a top notch team of caring healthcare providers that helped me achieve all my dreams and reach for bigger ones. I was so inspired by this miracle, that I went into the healthcare field to help other people achieve their dreams. I truly believe that Acupuncture, Herbal Medicine and Massage Therapy can be a part of that miracle for you! Every day, through this work, I see lives change. I see people come to life as their injury and pain slip into the background and they regain their ability to participate in the activity that fills them with life!

Over the last two decades in healing practice, I have been called many things: healer, magician, wizard, but I think of myself as a guy who likes to play. Who understands the importance of play. Who understands the agony of losing the ability to play. If you’ve been injured, I know what you’re going through! I can meet you where you are and help you get where you want to be.