In the practice of acupuncture needles are inserted into strategic points of the body to affect the flow of subtle energy and to stimulate the body’s own self-healing mechanisms. In Chinese the subtle energy is called Qi.
What about the needles?
Acupuncture needles are very slender and not at all like the needles used by doctors to give shots. When the needle makes contact with the Qi, there is a sensation that can feel like an ache or sometimes a tingle. Many people have apprehension about the needles but the vast majority of clients look forward to treatment because the needles become associated with wellbeing and relaxation.
Do you use disposable needles?
Yes, all needles used are sterile and individually wrapped. They are used once and properly displosed of after the treatment.
Is Acupuncture safe?
In 1997 an NIH Consensus Conference concluded that acupuncture is effective and the occurrence of adverse effects extremely low. The Conference stated that acupuncture ” has a substantially lower incidence of adverse effects than many drugs or accepted medical procedures used for the same conditions.” And further, that “the data in support of acupuncture is as strong as those for many accepted Western medical therapies.”
Acupuncture is the process of inserting thin (very thin) needles into specific points to have a therapeutic purpose. The body has points along meridians in the body; these points are selected by diagnosis and therapeutic action. People experience acupuncture differently, but most feel no or minimal pain as the needles are inserted. Some people feel energized by treatment, while others feel relaxed.
Practiced in China and other Asian countries for thousands of years, acupuncture is one of the key components of traditional Chinese medicine. In TCM, the body is seen as a delicate balance of two opposing and inseparable forces: yin and yang. Yin represents the cold, slow, or passive principle, while yang represents the hot, excited, or active principle. According to TCM, health is achieved by maintaining the body in a “balanced state”; disease is due to an internal imbalance of yin and yang.
Acupuncture has been practiced in China and other Asian countries for thousands of years.
Scientists are studying the efficacy of acupuncture for a wide range of conditions.
Relatively few complications have been reported from the use of acupuncture. However, acupuncture can cause potentially serious side effects if not delivered properly by a qualified practitioner.
I’m back on the acupuncture train today! I couldn’t be happier (unless it was free, of course ).
I have missed having dozens of needles stuck in me every couple of weeks. I originally started acupuncture (and TCM herbs) in 2007, about 6 months after my very first lap. After my surgery, my doctor told me that it was imperative that we do medication before trying to conceive again, and then she would only give me 2-3 months to “try” before she’d want me back on meds. She wanted to put me on lupron, which I refused. Instead, we went with some progestin-only bcp taken every day to avoid a period. HUGE mistake. (I had brought up natural progesterone, and my doctor had assured me that I’d never be able to get enough progesterone with the cream to make a difference. HA. I feel like mailing her my latest test results just to say, “IN YOUR FACE!”. But I won’t, because I’m an adult. Sort of.) The progestin bcp’s made me an awful person. I’m talking, raaaaging bitch. My sister was living with us at the time, and I can’t even count the number of times I thought about kicking her out of the house with nowhere to go. I yelled at my husband constantly. I yelled at my boss (this was back when he hadn’t yet turned into a selfish, money-grubbing, asshole). I generally wanted to murder someone all the time. After three months of that, I called the dr. crying and said TAKE ME OFF of this crap. She put me on another bcp – this one with estrogen. I immediately gained 10 lbs, had breakthrough bleeding and abdominal pain which was just as painful as pre-surgery. I lasted only a month on that one and demanded a new medication. At this point, my doctor (or her PA rather) was on the phone just reading down a list of medication. She said, well, we’ll just keep trying ’til we find the right one. WHAT?! I ended up trying Nuva.ring, but after 8 weeks of bleeding stopped that as well.
And that’s when I said, no way, no how, am I doing any more hormones. Obviously, as the endo girls know – bcp’s are NOT the cure for endo. I was so sick and tired of taking this crap that made me feel horrible and wasn’t doing any good! And my doctor had the nerve to tell me that the reason the endo was going to “come back” was because I wouldn’t cooperate and stay on the meds. I wish I would have known enough at the time to tell her that the reason it would “come back” was that she didn’t remove it in the first place! She made me feel like I was a complete idiot.
My friend Tanya was in TCM school in Victoria, BC at the time, and she and the dean of her school offered to treat me long-distance with herbs if I would see a local practitioner at some point to do acunpuncture. I think I started the herbs in October, and acupuncture in November. By February 2008, I had ovulated and had a normal-length cycle for the first time in years! Unfortunately, the endo pain was still there and getting worse, as my dr. had only done “ablation” of endo and drained the endometrioma instead of excising it. She in fact hadn’t “removed” anything, just burned the surface. Despite being thrilled that I had true signs of ovulation, and my once-long cycles were starting to shorten, I was still in a lot of pain. I continued acupuncture through my next surgery (by the way, acupuncture is awesome for relieving nausea!) and into September. Once again, the surgeon had not excised the endo – in fact, he didn’t TOUCH the endo, which I wasn’t aware of until much later. He only removed my right ovary and tube and then closed me back up again. Jerk.
After my second surgery, I continued to have pain, although it was lessened since my giant grapefruit sized ovary was gone. I changed acupuncturists, and did acupunture weekly instead of every two weeks. My shorter cycles became even shorter (28-30 days, finally!), and much more consistent. Unfortunately, acupuncture alone couldn’t “cure” my endo, so I was back in surgery in March of this year. And apart from one post-surgery appointment for nausea relief, I haven’t done acupuncture since then.
Now that the endo is in the background, and infertility is in the forefront with nothing competing for my body’s attention, I’m excited to get back into acupuncture. One of the reasons I quit before (the main reason really) was the expense. Weekly treatments were just too costly, and my husband wasn’t thrilled about paying for continued treatments after we had to shell out over $3k for another surgery. The arrangement I had my acupuncturist at the time was that I’d pay for treatments if I got pregnant, and not if I didn’t. Obviously, he didn’t want to shell out another chunk of change if we got pregnant. That’s the time when the newly endo-free body is supposed to give you the best changes (according to some doctors anyway), and he just didn’t believe that if we got pregnant, it would have been because of the acupuncture. I wonder if I had continued the acupuncture anyway, would I have gotten pregnant last summer? I don’t know…and it’s not worth dwelling on.
Well, I wasn’t planning on writing a novel today, and this post has run away with me, so let me just end with a “fun” Face.book story.
I don’t know why I continue with Face.book – I quit over the summer and only recently rejoined, leaving just a select number of friends and family as “friends”. I don’t like Face.book, never have, and generally think it’s ridiculous to post those messages screaming for attention like “so and so wishes she could have seen this change coming” and “I have a secret, and if you ask me nicely…” and other crap like that.
Yesterday, one of my friends from Korea – another Army wife – posted a status update. “Looks like we are having a baby boom in my family. Cousins X, Y, Z…and now me. Who’s next?”
Sure, it’s probably one of the less obnoxious ways people could announce a pregnancy on FB, and I am nothing but happy for her because she is a really nice person and was a good friend. But, the part that got me was the comments underneath. Apparently, she just found out on Sunday (but hey, she has two other kids, so why would she be hesitant to share a BFP immediately?), but that’s not what floored me. It was her husband’s comment – “That’s what conjugal visits get you. I come home on leave for ten days and two weeks later…BAM, my wife’s two weeks pregnant.”
Wow. Just in case I’d forgotten how easy it is for some people, there it is like a punch right to the gut.
She and I were in TKD together in Korea, volunteered together for the soldier’s fundraisers, and lived in apartment buildings right next to each other. We started TTC about 3 months before she did. I remember that it took them about 6 months to conceive – it was at the point where I was offering to teach her how to chart when she got pregnant (she wasn’t interested in charting, btw). She might be the one friend that started trying at the same time that I did. My other friends that were getting pregnant then either already had a kid or had an “oops” pregnancy. They now have 2 kids with a third on the way.
For some reason, that news made me do something completely irrational. I went upstairs and pee’d on a cheapo dollar store test. As I was doing it, I was telling myself how stupid it was. I haven’t taken one of those in a LONG time. Of course it was negative.
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