I’ve been toying with the idea of this for a few months now. I even told my mom about it and she went and tried it before me.
First of all, let me just say, I don’t do well with needles (shots, blood tests, allergy tests, etc.) I have kind of a weird post-traumatic thing with them, which is to say that I think I’m fine while the needles are being done, but later when I get home, I feel violated and just want to cry. Back in 2004 I was doing a series of allergy tests and I had to stop because I just found the whole thing to be too exhausting and traumatic. I know, weird.
So you know I’m desperate when I tell you that I scheduled an acupuncture appointment. I called this morning to schedule it and the doctor fit me in tonight. I was a bit taken aback by that, you know how I like my pre-worry time.
Despite all the swimming and exercise that I do, I’ve bloated back up to the point that my clothes don’t fit. I’ve read all about water retention being caused by the heat, and we all know that it’s been hot here, but that doesn’t make my pants fit any better. I guess you could call it Seasonal Bloat Disorder, but I don’t like the acronym for that, so we’ll just carry on. I have bloating, plus, factor in my back acne problem that’s not being helped by the prescription gel. Then there’s a myriad of other complaints that lead me to believe that my hormones (oh delightful friends) are the culprit.
So, after work tonight, I spent 20 minutes on the table with 18 needles (I counted them) poked in various parts of my body. She then put “ear seeds” on pressure points in my ears and gave me a 7 day kit for “Cleansing and Detoxifying” my system. Hopefully it doesn’t give me speedy poop, because I hate that kind of crap. I really kind of hoped that she’d poke me and like a balloon, all the bloat would just squeal out of me. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.
I wasn’t sure what to expect, I’ve never had acupuncture done to me before. A couple of the needle insertions hurt a bit more than others, particularly in the stomach area. Interestingly, though, the pressure she exerted on the ear seeds hurt more than the insertion of the needles. Her dialog throughout the process centered on “balancing the body” and my “Qi” needs to be balanced. Although she kind of annoyed me by pointing at the colorless moles on my face and saying they were acne. *grunt*
I cried a bit when I got home (my needle PTSD) and then took a warm bath. I have another appointment Monday night.
My ear seeds…
Jammie J's Quest 