About John Rybak, L.Ac.
As an Acupuncturist in Portland, Oregon, John is most known for helping people with pain relief from sports injuries, accidents, arthritis, and chronic pain. He has been researching, studying, and interviewing leaders in Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine since 1997.
John is also the medical director of The WellBridge Clinic, he teaches acupuncture to master’s and doctoral medical students as a faculty member at the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine (OCOM), serves on the Oregon Acupuncturists Association (OAA) on the Legislative Committee, he is a OAA liaison to the Oregon Medical Board, and has served as the Vice President on the OAA Board of Directors.
John has studied extensively with some of the best acupuncturists and medical experts from Sports Medicine and Orthopedic Acupuncture, Japanese Style Acupuncture, Pediatric Acupuncture, Master Tung Style, Tan Style, and he even teaches dry needling. John’s treatment plans include:
- Acupuncture and Dry Needling
- Cupping / Myofascial release
- Electro-acupuncture
- Gua Sha / Scraping/ Graston technique
- Herbal prescriptions
- Nutritional Counseling
- Moxibustion
- Massage
John takes a holistic, systems approach. That approach gives him the unique ability to ‘see the forest through the trees’ for his patients who are in acute and chronic pain. From there he creates a strategic treatment plan that help people get better and stay better. His specialties include helping people recover from car accidents, nerve pain and neuropathies, digestive issues, women’s health, sleep problems, respiratory illness, asthma, seasonal allergies, travel sickness, parasites, epstein-barr syndrome, lyme’s disease, chronic fatigue syndrome, and fibromyalgia.
As a scientist, he wanted to know more about how acupuncture works.
John’s professional background is a systems biologist in universities, non-profits, government agencies, and in the private sector. His publications range from physiologic, behavioral, and ecologic, and social impact research to coordinating and contributing to multidisciplinary 12,000 page Environmental Assessments.
John is the ‘Accidental Acupuncturist.’ He was a skeptic and uninterested in acupuncture, but between sports injuries and a car crash, John sustained several injuries that had become severe chronic pain. He visited doctors, physical therapists, and chiropractors for 7 years and continued to rely on Ibuprofen every day. As a last ditch effort, John’s mom insisted he try acupuncture. It was 1997. John was a publishing scientist. At the time there were very few scientists who were brave enough to even acknowledge acupuncture, but he was desperate for solutions. So he reluctantly scheduled an appointment and to his surprise acupuncture worked.
As a scientist, John maintains a healthy curiosity. He had to know what the heck just happened? He had to know what physiologic processes were driving acupuncture? And why weren’t more people talking about acupuncture?
Those questions are what lead John to start The WellBridge Clinic. The WellBridge Clinic is a medical clinic dedicated to acupuncture and communicating with patients and providers in modern language.
John ardently believes that acupuncture can contribute significantly to the transformation of health care outcomes for our communities while reducing skyrocketing health care costs.
John’s mission is to ensure the acupuncture profession continues to mature and grow so that more people have access to acupuncture care. John stays active in public policy, acupuncture safety, acupuncture education, and is currently preparing for a TEDx talk for 2023.
In his free time John can be found with his wife, daughter, family, and friends snowboarding, paddle boarding, campling, fishing, gardening, pampering a small collection of orchids, and dreaming about a SCUBA holiday.