MA, LAc | Traditional Chinese Medicine | Practicing in the Santa Ynez Valley since 2004
Kristi Hundt is a Licensed Acupuncturist in Solvang, CA who has been treating patients across the Santa Ynez Valley and Central Coast for over twenty years. Her practice brings together Traditional Chinese Medicine, deep herbal expertise, and one of the most clinically advanced therapies available in integrative medicine today.
Kristi became interested in the movement of energy through channels when she began practicing Ashtanga yoga in 1994 while living in Boulder, Colorado.
Long before formal training, she was wildcrafting in Colorado, learning to identify, harvest, and work with plants in their natural environment. That relationship with plant medicine was what eventually led her to the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine, not the other way around. She came to school because of a passion for herbal medicine that was already there.
She is a Certified Qigong instructor and a frequent practitioner of Makkō-Hō, a Japanese system of six paired channel stretches she learned while pursuing advanced Shiatsu training. Makkō-Hō improves energy flow and opens the channels. It is a meditative movement form like Ashtanga yoga, Tai Chi and Qigong that she teaches to small groups, incorporating guided meditation rooted in Traditional Chinese Medicine and Shiatsu principles.
After graduating, she built her practice in the Santa Ynez Valley on California’s Central Coast. That was 2004.
Twenty years later she is still here, still loving this work, and still finding helping people to be the most meaningful thing she has done.
Over time, she added Frequency Specific Microcurrent to her practice. FSM reaches deeper into the body’s healing response, to the level of the cells and the body’s innate language of electricity. She has come to rely on it when indicated for conditions that acupuncture, herbs, and supplements alone could not fully resolve. She added it because it works, and because her patients needed it.
Kristi trained at the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine in Portland, Oregon, one of the most rigorous Chinese medicine programs in North America. The faculty included physicians trained at China’s top medical schools.
The Master’s program at OCOM required over 2,000 pulse readings before graduation. That level of diagnostic depth is genuinely uncommon, and it shows in the precision of her clinical work.
She completed a Certified Qigong instructor program in both the Soaring Crane and Turtle Longevity styles, and advanced Shiatsu coursework alongside her core training. Both inform how she understands structural health, movement, and the body’s energetic system.
She holds a specialty in Oncology Acupuncture, certified through Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She has completed extensive continuing education on nutritional counselling, herbal medicine and supplements. She is particularly focused on the relationship between the gut and brain, specifically psychoneuroimmunology or PNI. She maintains ongoing continuing education in Frequency Specific Microcurrent beyond what is state mandated, and continues to bring current, evidence-informed medicine to her patients in Solvang.
Nationally Board Certified Diplomate of Acupuncture
Master’s Degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine
Licensed Acupuncturist (LAc)
State of California
Certified Qigong Instructor
Soaring Crane and Turtle Longevity styles
Advanced Shiatsu Training
Incorporated into clinical practice when applicable
Frequency Specific Microcurrent
Certified by Shannon Goossen
Specialty in Oncology Acupuncture
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center certified
Every appointment begins with thorough listening. Not just the presenting symptoms, but the full picture: sleep, digestion, energy, mood, and history. The tongue and the pulse tell the rest. From that picture, a differential diagnosis is made from a Traditional Chinese Medicine perspective, and a treatment plan is built around the root imbalances, not just the surface complaint.
Pain and emotional health are not treated as separate concerns in this practice. Grief, anxiety, depression, and trauma produce measurable physical effects. Treating one without the other rarely produces lasting results. The same is true in reverse: physical conditions affect mood, sleep, and nervous system tone. Everything is connected, and the treatment reflects that.
Both acupuncture and Frequency Specific Microcurrent help the body shift from sympathetic fight or flight into parasympathetic rest-and-digest. This activates the vagus nerve, improves vagal tone, reduces cortisol output, and lowers the over activation of the HPA axis. For patients recovering from trauma, this process facilitates what researchers call neuroception of safety, the nervous system’s subconscious recognition that the environment is safe and that healing can proceed.
Modern life moves fast. Racing thoughts, tension in the upper back and shoulders, difficulty being present in the body: these are not character flaws. They are symptoms of a nervous system under chronic load. This practice addresses them directly, using tools that have been refining the relationship between the mind and the body for thousands of years, alongside the most current advances in bioelectrical medicine and supplements.
A treatment plan addresses both the condition and the pattern beneath it. That is what over twenty years of genuine dedication to this work produces.
The clinic is located at 1610 Oak Street in Solvang, a space that patients consistently describe as warm, inviting, and safe. Acupuncture and FSM appointments serve patients across the Santa Ynez Valley and Central Coast. Herb & Supplement consultations are available through telehealth appointments. Local physicians refer patients to Kristi, and treatment plans are always built to work alongside conventional medical care.
Three modalities are offered: acupuncture, herbal medicine and supplements, and Frequency Specific Microcurrent. Kristi makes supplement recommendations in addition to herbal recommendations when indicated. For many conditions, combining two or all three modalities produces the fastest results.
New patient appointments include a 30-minute health history assessment before treatment begins. New patient appointments are available within the upcoming two months only, to protect appointment availability for established patients. Frequency Specific Microcurrent is available to established patients only. Patients who wish to explore FSM should begin with an Initial Acupuncture or Initial Herbal Medicine and Supplements appointment to establish care.
An initial acupuncture appointment includes a thorough health history review. Kristi spends 30 minutes listening and asking questions, then makes a differential diagnosis from a Traditional Chinese Medicine perspective.
FDA-approved technology that delivers targeted electrical current at the cellular level. Available to established patients. Works alongside acupuncture and herbal medicine for conditions that require deeper resolution.
Chinese herbal formulas and supplement recommendations prescribed to address the root of your condition alongside the presenting symptoms. Adjusted overtime as your condition changes.
Whether you are managing a specific condition, navigating a health transition, or simply want to feel better in your body, the first step is a thorough intake and an honest conversation about what treatment can realistically offer you.
Kristi has been treating patients in this valley for over twenty years. The physicians who refer here, and the patients who return year after year, are the measure of that work.
Book online through the website. New patient appointments open two months in advance.