Alina Rehkopf R.Ac, R.TCMP

10/14/2025

A note for anyone who thinks it's a good idea to get rid of Canada Post in favour of other private courier options (FedX, Purolator etc):

When I have herbal medicines shipped to my patients it's usually via Canada Post. It takes 2 days and is $15-20 per order

Currently, because I have to courrier ship, it's $40 per order

Canada Post is not a business, it is a public service that we all contribute to via a tiny amount of our taxes. If we do not fund it appropriatly we all end up paying far more to private, for profit, services and than what comes out of our taxes for Canada Post.

Please support out postal workers.

01/22/2025

Official 2025 Community Voting Awards Platform for Grey County, ON. Where the community votes for their favourites every year.

10/05/2024

oooOOOOooo thanks for the nomination!

Official 2024 Community Voting Awards Platform for Grey County, ON. Where the community votes for their favourites every year.

10/03/2024

Tonight at the Hanover Public Library:

03/04/2024

A fresh shave means my head is a bit cold, but it's a great time to do some cupping high on my neck and on my scalp because the cups will actually stick!

Since there isn't much give on the scalp I put the cups on a lot lighter than normal and only leave them on for a few minutes. Gentle is key. There's nothing quite like the release this gives, especially for neck tension and headaches.

06/02/2022

Attn: Healthcare practitioners!

Learn how to use auricular acupuncture to significantly help people manage addiction, recover from trauma, and improve outcomes related to mental health. This training happening in Toronto on July 10th and 17th and is open to a wide variety of healthcare practitioners.

The NADA protocol is a time-tested, straightforward, and efficient (it only uses a few needles in the ear) way of helping our patients through their healing journey.

If you have any questions about it, DM me!

Grey Bruce Health Unit
Hanover and District Hospital

NADA Acudetox Specialist Certification as a NADA Acudetox Specialist For Addictions, Mental Health, Trauma and Community Healing NADA A no-nonsense, non-verbal, no-drug pharmaceutical free, and barrier-free approach to behavioural health. NADA Acudetox, a five point ear acupuncture protocol for reco...

04/21/2022

Expanded clinic hours start in May!

03/22/2022

An update about our making policy in clinic, in case you missed the e-mail that went out last week:

With the removal of many Ontario mask mandates on March 21st, the practitioners and staff at the clinic had a chat about what we’re doing at Hanover Physio and Sports Rehab. In the interest of maintaining a high level of safety for the wide variety of patients we see, everyone entering the clinic will continue to be required to wear a mask for the entire duration of their appointment.

We aren’t out of this pandemic yet and while many of us are now vaccinated and at lower risk, we want to make sure that anyone - whether immunocompromised, too young to get vaccinated, or at high risk for any other reason - feels safe and comfortable coming for treatment.

As a practitioner who is routinely in a small room with the door closed during treatments, I also appreciate everyone's cooperation in continuing to wear masks going forward.

This isn't forever - and I promise you'll get to see my full face someday! - so we'll continue to re-assess this requirement on an ongoing basis.

03/13/2022

Film Screening: Dope Is Death - Tuesday, March 15th @ 7:30pm
Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema (Toronto)

Learn about the history and people behind the acupuncture-based drug treatment clinic Lincoln Detox People’s Program, where the NADA protocol we now use for addictions originated.
Tickets here: https://hotdocs.ca/whats-on/films/dope-is-death?fbclid=IwAR0uQ2qKRGDE1Q40xHrNTtENYRCCd0FJG9b9iBnzfjeRlFp5QtadL_r_VIM

If you're not able to attend the screening (I can't I'm a little too far away) , you can still learn about the Lincoln Detox Center's journey and incredible impact through podcast episodes on their website here: https://dopeisdeath.com/

Via fellow Toronto practitioner Amrit Singh:
About 10 years ago I started working with Dr. Mutulu Shakur's foundation on creating awareness about his work at the Lincoln Detox Centre where the NADA protocol actually originated from. I did a lot of connecting, research and fundraising on this and now years later Director Mia Donovan made a documentary on The Detox Centre's journey. It documents how acupuncture changed and saved THOUSANDS of peoples lives during this time. It's a film about social justice, The Black Panthers, activism, and more. She did such an AMAZING job - the film is fantastic! I will be speaking at the panel of the screening and I would love to see you there.
It's rare we get to see our profession on a big screen so I hope you will come and support!

By the early 1970s, he**in was flooding the streets of New York City. Black and Puerto Rican neighbourhoods like Harlem and the South Bronx were hardest hit. This four part podcast series explores how Dr. Mutulu Shakur, stepfather of the late Tupac Shakur, along with members of the Black Panther Par...

03/09/2022

What is "Qi" and why is it important in Traditional Chinese Medicine? Broadly, we can think about Qi in a philosophical sense and a medical sense as both can be important for our understanding of health.

The term “Qi” comes up a lot in TCM when we talk about health, disease, and treatment. There is no good English word for “Qi” as it can be translated many ways, like: ‘vital energy’, 'material force’, ‘ether’, ‘matter-energy’ or just ‘energy’. However, its meaning is more complicated than that.

In our body, Qi takes on two major meanings:
Qi is the energy produced by the Internal Organs that takes on different forms depending on where it is inside the body and what it needs to do.

Qi is also the network of functional activities of any organ. ie “Stomach-Qi” is the whole of Stomach processes, like receiving and breaking down food. Qi is an energy that manifests simultaneously on the physical and mental-spiritual levels.

This is why Chinese Medicine tells us that the health of the body and the health of the mind/spirit are inseparable - they are simply different manifestations of the same Qi.

Understanding the nuance of Qi helps us understand how Chinese medicine affects the body and why it takes more time than conventional medicine:
Acupuncture and herbal medicines gently shift the body’s Qi in the right direction by encouraging the system as a whole to re-regulate itself; instead of forcing a strong, immediate change which can have a higher chance of side effects.