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March 25, 2006
First acupuncture experience
So I had my first acupuncture session recently, at Hayes Valley Acupuncture, with Angel Clark. It's a cute little healing center, and Angel is very nice.
I had to fill out a long health history form, and then we talked about it while she took notes. She looked at my tongue and took my pulses.
In the treatment room, I stripped to my underwear and layed supine on a comfy massage table with blankets and a pillow. She came and undraped my torso and feet, and swabbed areas with alcohol.
I asked her to tell me what points she was needling... she did some on my feet and lower legs (I remember K 3, a GB point, LV 2 & 3, and SP 6), hands and arms (H 7, LI 4, L 11, a TW point), abdomen (CV 6—Sea of Qi), ears (kidney, liver, and another point), GV 20, and a point at my third eye.
She checked ST 36 for tenderness, but there was none. That's some progress, I remember it was so sore when I first arrived at Heartwood, through most of first quarter at least.
She wasn't halfway through putting them in when I felt leveled out. It wasn't like calm, it was just "leveled out". Some I couldn't feel, some felt kinda good, and some hurt.
Some that hadn't hurt started to hurt during the session, and then would stop. I jammed my thumb recently, and it wasn't completely healed... the LI 4 needle was in that hand. I moved my thumb around and it hurt like hell. After the session, the joint felt better than before the session. I was amazed by that. It's 90% back to normal now.
Toward the end of the session, major stuff started happening. I would feel my entire internal universe rearrange over the course of a second or two, then my vision (eyes closed) would experience this "back and forth" closer and farther from me movement, very rapid... then it would settle down... and a minute later, happen again... more rearranging, weird movement in my vision, settle down.
That happened three times I think, and then I started to get really tranced out. It was like going to sleep, but not. I wanted to go to sleep, but that wasn't happening for me.
All told, I think I layed with the needles about 30 minutes. She came back in, removed the needles, and then left me to rest for a bit. I curled over into a fetal position, as I do after nearly every massage I receive, and let things sink in.
Afterward, I bought some herbs from her. Plum Flower, my favorite brand. She gave me some to prevent the cold that's been trying to set up home in my throat & chest, and then a long term formula for when I'm no longer worried about getting sick. Yay, a formula that's more appropriate for me than the stuff I've been self-medicating with.
I've been taking Six Flavor Tea Pills and other things to support my Kidneys, and she said I could stop worrying about those. The formula is to nourish the Liver Blood and Heart... it's very important that we calm my Liver, but especially my Shen (heart spirit) so that I can start getting better sleep. Once that's accomplished, it's likely the rest of the picture will change, since sleep is so healing.
Great experience, I'm so glad to finally have some acupuncture in my life. I'd like more. I love to get it weekly, but if I did everything I want weekly, I'd have no time for anything other than taking care of myself. :-)
Posted by Josh A. at March 25, 2006 12:31 PM
Comments
awesome, isnt it? welcome to the club! :)
Posted by: laura at March 25, 2006 05:06 PM