acupuncture #2

At my second appointment (Friday, three days after my first), I was laying in my recliner, waiting for K to see me, and a mother and her two boys came into the section in which I was seated.  Interesting.  I hadn't pictured non-adults getting acupuncture treatments.

The younger boy, Jon, was nervous.  He had a stuffed ladybug pillow clutched under one arm, and was incredibly fidgety.  He sat next to me and his brother, Paul sat across from me.  Their mom sat on the floor by Jon's chair.  I was curious to know what brought them here, but told myself to mind my own business.  I continued to lay with my eyes closed, trying to relax as much as possible until K was ready for me.

Jon was so nervous.  I don't blame him.  How in the world can having needles poked in your body AND LEFT THERE make sense to a seven-year-old?  I gathered from his frantic whispers with his mom that this was his first visit.  Paul seemed to know what he was doing, since he rolled up his sleeves and removed his shoes and socks while Mom rolled his jeans up past his knees.   Could be that Mom was a patient there and just knew what was expected, but maybe he had been there before, too.

Mom and Jon had whispered conversations wherein she tried to make him calm down (FYI, telling a 7-year-old to calm down doesn't work.  They don't have the self-control to make that happen.).  Jon had lots of questions.  He and Paul referred to the needles as "pins."  

Mom: "Do you want to go first or do you want Paul to go first?"

Jon:  "Paul!  He can go first!"

M:  "Shhh...ok."  (walks away for a second)

J:  "Paul!  YOU have to go first!  Ha ha ha ha ha!"

M:  "Shhh.  You have to calm down.  Just start relaxing."  Right.  Thanks for the magic words, Mom.

K was also their acupuncturist, and once my needles were in (again, about 12 total, same placements as the first time), I overheard snippets of her conversations with the boys, though I really tried not to listen.  Or mostly not to look like I was listening.  

Paul was a second- or third-grader, and did not appear to be at all nervous about acupuncture.  He may have been purposely taking it in stride for the benefit of his brother, though.  His pins were inserted relatively quickly, and then it was Jon's turn.

Jon had trouble containing his nerves to a whisper once K was at his chair.  She was wonderful at communicating with a scared kid, and made sure to talk with him mostly, rather than talking just to his mother about him.  She said they could use some kind of electromagnetic-pulse-giving device since it just pushed pin-like things against the skin rather than into it, and used an electric current, since Jon was so scared.  He liked that idea immediately.  Mom, however, was not as happy with that solution.

M:  "Jon, the pins will work better, though.  You won't have to have them for very long. I think we should do the pins."

After enough of her cajoling (nagging), Jon said, "FINE. The pins."

So much for K's attempts to ease him into the process.  Mother knows best.

K asked Jon, "How long have you had your headaches?"

Ooh, we're here for the same thing!  I wanted to tell him that and let him know about my same-day results, but it wasn't exactly the time for that, and I had a feeling that wouldn't be normal behavior.

J, in a very sad voice: "January eighth."

What?!  I couldn't keep my eyebrows from shooting up as I listened with my eyes closed.  Holy crap that is terrible.  That would be so miserable.

K:  "So that's when you started getting them? How often do you get them?"

J:  "No, it's just one.  ALL the time."

Oh wow.  Ouch.  Poor kid.

K:  "Every day?  And where does it hurt usually?  In the front, or by your neck?"

J:  "All over.  MY WHOLE HEAD."

Oh my.  I need to stop complaining.

Once they decided to go ahead with the pins, K talked to him a bit about them and where she would put them.  She calmed his fears about having them in his head, explaining that his head is where all the bad stuff is stuck and that's why it hurts all the time, so she wasn't going to put pins there.  She was going to put them in his hands and arms to draw the bad stuff down, away from his head.

While K and Mom were discussing something, Paul leaned forward a bit in his recliner and whispered:

P:  "Jon.  Jon.  You can do it!"

I couldn't help smiling a little bit.

As K inserted a couple needles, Jon asked how many he would have.

K:  "Well, I'm putting four in this arm..."

J:  "Four?  Four.  Mom, I can do four!  Only four?!"

K:  "Four here, then we're going to move around to your right arm and put four there, too..."

J:  "EIGHT?!?!"

Here, his voice raised to an alarming pitch and was not containable in whisper-form, apparently.  Not that I blame him.  He was being crazy amounts of brave, having his mom make him do the treatment when he had another less-pokey option, and then finding out that he will be stuck with twice as many pins as he had understood a second previously.  I had no problem at all with being in this section of the treatment area and dealing with this, really.  I wasn't going to fall asleep anyway, and this was interesting.

K assured him that he would only have pins in for a short time (ten minutes), and Mother reminded him that they were going to Toys R Us after they were done at the clinic.  They all agreed on where the clock's hands would be at the end of ten minutes, and K was gone to treat others.

A minute went by.  Mother sat in the chair opposite Jon, holding his book.

J:  "Mom.  Mom, hold Smiley."

I presume that Mom took the stuffed ladybug from Jon's lap and sat with it in her chair.

Twenty more seconds passed.

J:  "Mom, give Smiley lots of hugs.  He's scared."

M:  "Okay, shhh."  What a bitch.  Alright, I know that's a severe reaction, but she wasn't doing well at validating what her child full of nerves was saying to her during this entire visit.

I wondered if Jon would continue to have things to say, but he actually did stay quiet for most of the ten minutes, which I was hoping he'd be able to do for his own sake.  My previous session enforced for me the importance of making time to be in a quiet, comfortable space and relaxing.

My treatment was half an hour again.  I had gone in with a dull headache that I'd had off and on throughout the day.  Unfortunately, I didn't have the same results as after my first treatment.  I had that headache all weekend.  It dulled and strengthened at times, but never completely went away.  That was exhausting.

Thankfully, my next appointment was Monday after work, and I was hoping I'd feel better effects after that one.  This has been a very long post, though, so I'll be adding that later.

acupuncture #1

I get a lot of headaches, and when I say "a lot," I mean it.  "A lot" as in basically at least one every day for a month.  My boyfriend says it's been longer than a month, and maybe he's right.  I tend to play down the importance of the frequency of my headaches, largely because I don't want there to be something wrong with my brain so I pretend there's not.

Earlier this year I bought an online coupon for acupuncture.  It was a really good deal, and was the kick in the head I needed to finally try the treatment.  I had my first appointment a few days ago, and it was quite interesting.

My main goal is to get. rid. of. all. these. headaches.  I have lived too many days feeling like a Jetson (taking so many pills a day it’s as if I’m getting sustenance from them), and have wanted to try acupuncture, which has been approved by multiple health organizations that I’m too lazy to look up and link to as a headache treatment.

In preparation, I had to fill out a page of my health history and conditions, and another page of woman-specific health conditions.  Can you say “menses?”  Don’t.  I can’t stand that word.  It’s weird. 

Since traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) involves qi and the interconnectedness of the parts and organs in the body, some of the health condition questions were about my sleep schedule, pooping consistency (in all meanings of the word), appetite, various aches and pains, etcetera.  Basically, I had to let them know how my whole body has been doing.

My acupuncturist, K, was very informative.  I like learning new things, especially when I’m about to be poked with needles by a stranger.  I described my headaches and then she took my pulse(s).  Holding her middle three fingers on my inner wrist, she applied gentle pressure but would occasionally change which finger had the most pressure, as if I had a little wrist piano she was playing.  During this, she kept talking and asking questions (I want to know more about why she didn't have to stay quiet and count or something).  Then she switched to my other wrist.  While I was answering one of her questions, she interrupted me and asked if I have been feeling nauseous after eating, or have had little interest in eating lately.  Wow.  Yeah.  For a couple of weeks, I’d feel sick to my stomach after every meal.  It was distressing, and nothing I did to try to avoid the nausea helped, such as changing my diet, eating less, eating at different times of day, eating more frequently…nothing.  K replied that my spleen pulse was very irregular, which ties into the stomach and digestion, and that’s why she asked.  Neat.

Fast forward to the needles.  Now, I don’t mind needles, and I realize that many people are uncomfortable or have needle-phobias.  Here's the part where I describe the pokey part of my visit, so you may want to skip the next two paragraphs if you are sensitive to these things. I had a total of about 12 needles in me for 30 minutes.  Seven or eight in my arms/hands, one in a knee, and three in my feet.  I only felt one of them.  (K had said I should tell her if any of them was uncomfortable and she’d reposition it, but I didn’t realize it was twingeing until she had left.)  It wasn't bad, though; as long as I didn’t hold my arm in a certain awkward position, the needle was easy to ignore.  The idea is not to feel the needles.  They don’t go in deeply enough to draw blood, and are only the diameter of a couple hairs or something.

I leaned back in my recliner and shut my eyes, hoping to fall asleep to the ambient sounds/music coming out of the stereo in the corner.  Unfortunately whale songs don’t do it for me, apparently.  Yes, there were some whale songs playing with a piano in the background.  I didn’t realize how hippy-earthy it was until I concentrated, though.  Since I couldn’t sleep, I took some time to look at the needles sticking out of me.  It was only a little hard to get used to and become comfortable with seeing them attached to my skin.  I tested their staying power by gently wiggling my arms.  Then my nose itched so I had to move one arm to take care of that.  The needles were fine.  That made other parts of my face itch.  I had one needle in the top of my head, to promote relaxation.  That one made me slightly uneasy because I couldn’t see it, and I was worried that my long hair might get caught on the back of the chair for no good reason and pull the needle out, or I’d forget it was there and start practicing patting my head and rubbing my belly, thereby jamming the needle into my skull.  Thankfully, I was able to resist that.

That evening, I started getting ready for bed when I was tired, as is my norm.  When I looked at the clock, it was only 9:15p.  What?  Wow.  I’m NEVER tired at 9. And it’s hard for me to fall asleep at 11:30p or 12:30a, even if/when I am feeling tired.  K and I had talked about my issues falling and staying asleep, which she said made sense with the other things I had described.  She said that treating my headaches would likely help my sleeping issues, but I did not expect to feel same-day results. 

I slowed down my going-to-bed processes a bit when I realized how early it was, but I was in bed around 10 anyway.  I started a crossword puzzle, which I typically enjoy doing to unwind at the end of the day, but could not keep my eyes open.  When I shut my light off, it wasn’t even 10:30.  I was delighted, though thankfully not so excited about sleeping that my adrenaline kept me awake.

Appointment #2 is today.  I am excited for it. 

Even more good news:  since my appointment, I have had only one headache that I needed to take medication for.  Holla.