Chronic Pain Relief in St. Petersburg, FL

Chronic pain doesn’t just hurt. It takes over. It changes how you sleep, how you move, how you show up at work, and how present you can be with the people you love.

Dr. Holly Durning didn’t start in a wellness studio. She started on the floor of NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases and the VA Medical Center's Neurology Department, treating patients whose pain didn’t respond to the standard playbook. If you’ve already tried medication, physical therapy, and injections and you’re still hurting, that’s exactly who she built this practice for.

In Chinese medicine, pain that sticks around for months or years is rarely one problem. It’s usually described as stagnation, a block in the smooth movement of Qi and Blood through the body, and stagnation tends to have more than one cause: old injury, inflammation, nerve involvement, muscular compensation, stress, poor sleep. Dr. Durning’s training taught her to treat pain the way a hospital pain team would: find every contributing factor, not just the loudest one.

One patient described it this way: “She really takes the time to talk to you before each session to figure out what we should work on and is consistently up to date on what you have previously mentioned. She has improved my back pain and educates on what each needle is doing for you.”

Why Chronic Pain Needs a Different Approach

Most chronic pain treatment is built to manage symptoms, not to ask why the pain persists in the first place. Dr. Durning’s approach starts from a different premise: pain that’s been stuck around for months or years usually has more than one contributing factor, and effective treatment has to address more than one of them at a time. That’s the difference between acupuncture as an occasional add-on and acupuncture as a structured, ongoing part of a pain management plan. Dr. Durning designs the latter, based on the individual's unique conditions.

The Clinical Background Behind the Care

Her clinical internships at NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases and the VA Medical Center's Neurology Department gave her direct, hands-on exposure to how pain actually presents in orthopedic and neurological patients, not just how it’s described in a textbook. That background, along with the thousands of patients she's treated over twenty years, shapes how she evaluates every new patient: looking for the underlying mechanical, neurological, or systemic pattern driving the pain, not just the location where it hurts.

Conditions We Support

• Lower back and neck pain, often linked to posture, old injury, or disc-related issues

• Joint pain and arthritis, including knees, hips, shoulders, and hands

• Migraines and chronic headaches, including tension-type and stress-related patterns

• Nerve-related pain and neuropathy, tingling, burning, or shooting pain often tied to nerve compression or damage

• Post-injury and post-surgical pain, supporting recovery when pain persists longer than expected

• Fibromyalgia and widespread muscle pain, a whole-body approach for pain that doesn’t stay in one place

What Treatment Actually Looks Like

Visit one. A full conversation about your pain history: when it started, what makes it better or worse, what you’ve already tried, and what your day-to-day life looks like around it. This isn’t a five-minute intake. Understanding the full picture is what makes the treatment plan work.

The plan. Dr. Durning builds a personalized acupuncture protocol, often paired with guidance on lifestyle and self-care factors that influence pain, aimed at reducing pain intensity and improving function over a defined course of visits, not an open-ended, indefinite commitment.

Ongoing care. Chronic pain often responds best to a series of visits rather than a single session. Dr. Durning will talk through realistic expectations for your specific condition at your first visit.

How Acupuncture Fits Alongside Other Pain Care

Acupuncture isn’t positioned here as a replacement for medical care, physical therapy, or medication your doctor has prescribed. For many patients, it works best as a complement: reducing reliance on medication over time, supporting recovery between physical therapy sessions, or addressing pain that hasn’t fully resolved through other approaches alone. Dr. Durning coordinates with a patient’s existing care team when appropriate.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many acupuncture sessions will I need for chronic pain?

It depends on the condition, how long you’ve had it, and how you respond to early treatment. Dr. Durning will give you a realistic estimate after your first evaluation rather than a generic number.

Does acupuncture hurt?

Most patients describe the sensation as minimal, a light pinch or dull pressure at most, that fades quickly as the needles settle.

Why Patients Choose Dr. Durning for Pain Management

Patients often arrive here after other approaches haven’t stuck. What they find is a provider who treats pain as a whole-person issue rather than an isolated symptom, backed by hospital-level clinical training most acupuncturists don’t have.

Chronic pain doesn’t resolve on its own timeline just because you’re tired of waiting on it. If you’re ready to find out what’s actually driving yours, the next step is a first visit, not another round of research.

Book Your Appointment  |  Still deciding? Ask Dr. Holly if acupuncture fits your specific pain first.

Related reading: Discover Natural Pain Relief with Acupuncture. For the technique itself, see our Acupuncture page.