El Cerrito & Oakland Hand Therapy and Acupuncture

I am encouraged by the positive Unilocal reviews. I have a doctors prescription for 6 weeks — 2 times per week Acupuncture to cure (hopefully) some neck and headache pain ongoing since July 2^nd (I was rear-​ended at a stop light). Katie took my information and was ver helpful in getting me an appointment ASAP — Monday Aug 17^th at 3PM. Looking forward to some pain relief. More later.
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Aug 27^th — Susan Cupples is an amazing practitioner of the science & art of acupuncture. I have been walking around with a headache for seven weeks. after one session, my headache was GONE for 2 hours. This the first real relief I have had. After three sessions my body feels as if it is correcting itself from a traumatic rear-​end episode. The staff is very, very efficient! Can’t wait for my next appointment! Hooray! ;)

I have been coming here for over a year. The people here are the nicest you would ever meet, except one greeting girl that always wants to kick you out if you are more than 5 minutes late (but she is young and self absorbed). Other than that the staff (of at least 10 people who work here) is very professional and competent and you get results!
I have arm and hand problems and Susan Cupples built up the strength in my TFCC (Ulnar) which is a very delicate region that is very difficult to treat. The referal nerve pain problem in my shoulder also improved dramatically.
People with hand and shoulder issues need to realize that chronic issues in these areas take a long time to heal if you are using those joints daily and therefore need to be patient to get results. Just 5 – 6 session is not going to do it.
My specialist doctors over at UCSF are always commenting about my improvement over the other hand thereapy shops around the Bay Area and how people get superior results with Oakland and El Cerrito Hand Therapy.
I was really concerned about the use of my hand and given an hour of driving each way to work to Cupertino, I was very doubtful that my hand would ever get any better and might need to find closer work. But, Susan helped me turn this around. I am very grateful.
The only minus here are the back office people (who deal with your insurance) who don’t seem to know what they are doing. They screw up the paperwork and expect you pick up the pieces. I would give 4 stars but it would detract from the excellent theraputic work.

In June I crashed my bike and dislocated my left index finger, and it was pretty ugly. My hand doctor referred me to El Cerrito Hand Therapy. When I started treatment, I could barely bend my index finger at all, and it was quite swollen. The middle finger was better, but it too was swolen and stiff. It took several months, but today the fingers have almost all their mobility and a lot of their strength. I still use the custom splint Shelly made for me, and the weights and digiflex she recommended. She was very pleasant to work with and the results, to my mind, speak for themselves.

I’ve had good results for my broken and sprained wrists with Lizba. She is caring and very knowledgable.
But the rest of the operation is a nightmare. They dropped their contract with my insurer for 10 days, didn’t tell me, and billed me for an expensive visit. I recently got a bill in which they hadn’t billed my insurance company for some of the visits. I needed medical records and they charged me $ 20 to copy 20 pages. None of my other providers charged me. They nickel and dime every charge and then don’t bill properly.
They get 3 stars because I’ve had good results with 2 therapists and most medical offices are not well run. If you go there, visit each therapist until you find the one you like, verify insurance coverage, read your bills carefully, and ask billing questions.

Renee Barroga at El Cerritto Hand Therapy is expert, professional, and warmly personal. I was her client when both of my wrists were severely fractured with extensive soft tissue damage. After the surgery I did not want anyone to touch my hands, let alone move or manipulate them. In that early phase Renee never once made me nervous or inflicted pain. During the long course of my recovery I came to appreciate her knowledge and total absorption with the anatomy, functioning, and therapeutic strategies for hands, wrists, arms, and shoulders.
I have been a massage therapist and instructor of massage for 30 years. Renee Barroga is, in my view, a leading hand therapist

I feel so fortunate to have gotten treatment at EL CERRITO HAND THERAPY. I was referred to them by Stanford Hand Therapy following surgery at Stanford’s Hand and Wrist Orthopedic section. I had tripped on a sidewalk in Oakland and shattered my wrist. It had to be pieced back together and a metal plate screwed down to hold it all together. I developed Pain Syndrome, excruciating pain that lasted 2 months. The narcotics hardly helped from the beginning but it got worse — 2 weeks after the surgery out of the blue I had a full blown panic attack that lasted 5 hours. I had never had a panic attack before and it was terrifying. Looking back, I should have called the paramedics. After that, every time I took a narcotic pain medication, no matter how small the amount, I became terrified. I couldn’t take them anymore, and I couldn’t take any other pain meds for various reasons. It was the most horrible experience! I am so grateful for my hand therapist who helped me get through all that. She was so understanding and caring and a great comfort to me. I highly recommend the therapists at EL CERRITO HAND THERAPY. They are so excellent in their work as hand therapists and they go beyond the call of duty to help everyone. Go there. You’ll be glad you did.

Not too long ago, I partially severed my thumb on the job & ended up having an emergency surgery. For over a month, I had a pin in my thumb that prevented me from being able to move it at all, so that the bone could heal. The pin came out 2 wks. ago & I have been working with an excellent hand therapist ever since. The owner, Susan Cupples, had me feeling better during the very first visit. She started me off with ultrasound & massage & heat, & she showed me a few simple exercises. She also made me a beautiful, custom-​fitted splint to wear. In fact, so much went on during my first appointment that I cannot even remember all of it! All I can tell you is that I walked out of her office feeling very confident that I’d return to work very soon. I finally had some real hope that I’d soon heal completely & that I’d be back to my old tricks — playing the piano, working in my vegetable garden…
Just this week I graduated to the weight stack machine. She has me working my whole upper body now. It’s part of what she calls her «return to work» routine. I really can’t believe how strong I’ve gotten.
She instructed me on how I was to wrap my thumb before bed & she educated me about how EXACTLY to continue with the therapy at home. When I saw my hand surgeon a few days ago, he could not believe how fast & how well my thumb & hand are healing. He was very obviously impressed with the progress I’ve made, thanks to El Cerrito Hand Therapy.
The owner is also a Licensed Acupuncturist with a Masters Degree in Acupuncture & Traditional Chinese Medicine. That says a lot about her. She’s more than an Occupational Therapist who happens to work with hands… She is an extremely well-​educated, gifted hand therapist who has really made a difference in how much use I have of my left thumb, just a few short weeks after a very serious injury. I’m no longer in pain & I can’t say enough about how much she’s helped me.