Meet Your Acupuncturist

Matthew Sabey Smith, DACM, LAc., Dipl.Ac.

Founder, Lively Vibe Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine, PLLC

Some people find their calling. Matthew Sabey Smith built his, one layer at a time, over the course of his lifetime spent studying the human body, pushing its limits, and learning how to help others heal.

He holds a Doctorate in Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine, the highest clinical degree in the field, with additional graduate training in Health & Human Performance. He currently serves on faculty at Yo San University and spent six years teaching graduate students at Phoenix Institute of Herbal Medicine & Acupuncture, covering everything from Western Pathophysiology and Sports Medicine to Practice Management and the History of Medicine. There is something that happens to a clinician who teaches at that level. The knowledge goes deeper. The thinking gets sharper. The patients benefit.

Long before the clinic, there was a young man practicing Transcendental Meditation at fourteen, stepping onto a yoga mat as a competitive athlete in his twenties, and eventually traveling to Rishikesh, India to work alongside a medical team serving a charitable hospital. These weren't detours. They were the foundation of everything he does today.

Matthew is also a powerlifter who holds a world record squat and has spent nearly two decades coaching athletes of all kinds. He understands physical pain not just as a clinician, but as someone who has lived inside a body being asked to do hard things. That changes how you listen. It changes what you notice.

His patients are athletes, but they are also people carrying chronic pain they've stopped talking about, stress that has settled into their bones, and health concerns they haven't been able to solve anywhere else. Matthew works with all of it, patiently and thoroughly, always looking for the source rather than the symptom, and always willing to coordinate with whoever else is on your care team.

The credentials matter. But what people tend to remember is that he listened, and that he actually cared.

Credentials & Training

• Doctor of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine (DACM), the highest clinical degree in the field — Pacific College of Oriental Medicine (now Pacific College of Health and Science), San Diego, CA, 2020
• Master of Science in Oriental Medicine — Phoenix Institute of Herbal Medicine & Acupuncture, Phoenix, AZ, 2019
• Additional graduate training in Health & Human Performance
• Dipl. Ac. (NCBAHM)
• Faculty, Yo San University
• Six years teaching graduate students at Phoenix Institute of Herbal Medicine & Acupuncture
• Licensed Acupuncture and Eastern Medicine Practitioner, Washington State — License No. ACUP.AC.70047057. Verify at the Washington State Department of Health provider search