Or Adventures in Accupuncture
My voice has still not come back all of the way from the laryngitis episode. It is better than it was pre-prednisone. Instead of being barely able to whisper, I sound like I smoke three packs a day. There are still several months heavy with tree pollen for me to deal with and I'm worried. It feels like I need to push the reset button on my immune system. Sooooooo, I decided to give accupuncture a try. I had my first appointment on Friday. Would you like to know what it is like?
First, the nice, French, accupuncturist lady (NAFL, for short) took a lot of time asking me about my symptoms, checking my pulse and looking at my tongue. She asked me if I wanted to see the needles and I said "yes." The needles used are disposable, about the thickness of a piece of hair and flexible. (Maybe don't look if you are squeemish.)
NAFL announced that I should lay down on the table on my back and that she needed to be able to access my wrists and ankles. She briefly left the room. Okey dokey- I pushed up my sleeves and rolled my pants legs up a bit, laid down and closed my eyes. She returned, cleaned the areas to be "punctured" with an anticeptic, and proceeded to put a needle in my left wrist area. It stung just a bit, but didn't really hurt. I ended up with needles in both wrists, three needles in my face- between my eyebrows and one on either side of my nose, and needles in both ankles. She then said I needed to lay there on the table for 10-20 minutes and to let her know if there was any pain or problems and she left the room.
There was nice, soothing, new-agey, Asian music playing and it relaxing laying there. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on just being still. After a while the nice lady came back into the room and felt my pulse. "You need a little more time." She left the room again. I continued to focus on staying relaxed. After what seemed like a fairly short time, she came back into the room again and checked my wrist. Whatever had happened was enough and she started to remove the needles. This felt like a slight tugging, but did not hurt. "When you are ready, come out to the waiting room and we will finish up." I lay there for a bit longer, collecting my thoughts, got up from the table and left the treatment room.
NAFL gave me some Chinese herbs in capsule form to take (3 pills, 2 times a day) and suggested I come back in a week. That will be $75.00 please.
So, I'm taking the herbs and going back next week. I gave it some thought and realized that my expectations aren't that high. It was relaxing, at the very least. If it works - great. If not, it was worth a try. I've certainly spent that much on allergy meds and MD visits in the last couple of months which aren't working. I'm on day two of the herbs - not much is different. I'll report back on whether it seems to work or not.
