Melissa Guardiano is an Acupuncturist at Mountain View Pain Center, seeing patients at Arapahoe. She earned her Master of Science in Acupuncture at the Colorado School of Traditional Chinese Medicine, is a Colorado native and serves in the Colorado Army National Guard. No referral is needed, and our goal is to get you in within the same week.
Melissa Guardiano earned her Master of Science in Acupuncture from the Colorado School of Traditional Chinese Medicine in April 2020. Melissa is also certified in Clean Needle Technique. Modalities Melissa utilizes other than Acupuncture for optimal healing are electro-Acupuncture, moxibustion, tui-na, gua-sha, acupressure, cupping, auriculotherapy, scalp, and dietary and lifestyle recommendations. She has additional training in the treatment of pre-natal, pregnancy, and post-natal women's health. Melissa’s approach to treatment is to meet the patient where they are and by having a conversation about how to assist their body to restore balance, relieve pain, and promote healing. Melissa is a Colorado native and additionally serves in the Colorado Army National Guard. Outside of her career, she enjoys spending time with her husband and two boys.
Acupuncture is the part of this tradition everyone has heard of, and it is not the whole of it. Melissa works with moxibustion, cupping, gua sha, tui na, acupressure, auricular and scalp points, and electro-acupuncture, and which of those a session uses depends on the problem and on the person. A patient who is genuinely unwilling to be needled is not out of options, which is worth knowing before ruling the whole approach out.
Her training also covers care through pregnancy and after it, and her stated approach is to meet the patient where they are and talk through what is being done rather than work in silence. Practically, that means a first appointment with her involves more conversation than most people expect and fewer assumptions about what you already believe.
The problems she sees most are back pain, neck pain, knee pain, migraines and neuropathy.
The first appointment is mostly questions and examination. Where the pain is, what it does over a day, what has already been tried, how you sleep and what else is going on, because the pattern matters as much as the location. Then the needles, which are the part people worry about and the part that surprises them: they are single-use, sterile and about the width of a hair, and most patients describe insertion as a dull heaviness or nothing at all rather than as a sharp pain.
You lie still for roughly twenty to thirty minutes with the needles in place, and a fair number of people fall asleep. Cupping is often used alongside it for tight, guarded muscle, and dry needling is a related but different technique, which the comparison page explains. Relief after one session is common but not the point: acupuncture is generally judged over a short course rather than a single visit.
Where acupuncture is not the right tool, Physical Therapy, Chiropractic and Pain Management are in the same building and on the same chart, so a change of direction is a conversation rather than a new referral and another wait.
Melissa sees patients at Arapahoe. That page lists the address, the hours and what a first visit involves.
For the rest of the team, see the Colorado Acupuncture providers page, or acupuncture in your area. No referral is needed for Acupuncture at Mountain View Pain Center.
Acupuncture coverage varies more between plans than any other service line we offer. Some plans cover a set number of visits a year, some cover it only for named conditions, and some do not cover it at all. Medicare’s coverage of acupuncture is narrow and condition-specific. Our team verifies your benefits before your first visit and tells you what yours covers, so the number is known in advance rather than after.
Availability changes from week to week, so the honest answer is to ask. Request an appointment online and say you would like to see Melissa, or call and our team will tell you what is open at Arapahoe. No referral is needed, and our goal is to get you in within the same week.
Yes. Acupressure, cupping, gua sha, tui na and moxibustion are all part of the same tradition and none of them involves a needle. Say so at the first visit and the session gets built around that rather than around persuading you.
Warming a point with a smoldering herb, usually mugwort, held near the skin rather than on it. It is used where warmth is what the tissue calls for, and it is one of the older techniques in Chinese medicine. Melissa uses it alongside needling or on its own.
At our Arapahoe clinic in Aurora. Chiropractic, Physical Therapy, Acupuncture and Pain Management are all Mountain View Pain Center service lines, so if your care needs to move between them it moves on one chart.
No. Acupuncture at Mountain View Pain Center does not require a referral, and neither do Chiropractic, Physical Therapy or Pain Management. Coverage varies widely between plans, so our team verifies your benefits before your first visit.
Day or night, seven days a week — and we’ll text you back to get you scheduled. No referral is needed, and our goal is to see you within the same week. Colorado scheduling runs through one number for every Colorado clinic: (720) 749-5599.
