I had my first acupuncture appointment yesterday. It left me feeling good, yet a little confused.<\/p>\n
I think the part I’m hung up on is how out-there it all sounds. Diagnosing me based on my pulse<\/i>? I’m willing to take anything into consideration, but reading up on the theory behind it hasn’t helped me feel any more reassured.<\/p>\n
Of course the price doesn’t help. Insurance doesn’t cover it so it’s all out of pocket, and at $60 per visit this is going to add up very quickly, especially going once per week like she suggested.<\/p>\n
But regardless, I’ve heard enough stories to think that it might possibly help somehow, and I’ve decided that this cycle I’m going all-in. Anything and everything that I can do to, just in case. I’m going on bedrest, I won’t be touching any alchohol whatsoever, I’ll be meditating and visualizing and getting acupuncture and anything I possibly can. Just in case it possibly helps. Win or lose, I want to know I did everything I could do.<\/p>\n
This acupuncturist practices at a little natural healing place that I didn’t know about. It’s the kind of place that sells crystal necklaces and pewter faerie charms. They require that you take off your shoes when you enter the building. It’s an old home – small and airy, with light colored walls and hardwood floors. I was shown into a treatment room that had a massage table in it. For the first while I sat in a chair and went over my medical history with the acupuncturist.<\/p>\n
It was my first time going over my history with a medical professional since my miscarriage. As I was listing my IVF cycles and results I almost wanted to laugh, because it really just sounds so ridiculous. I was getting flustered. I wonder how long it is going to take for me to get used to it, to absorb it all as my own history.<\/p>\n
After the consult she asked if I wanted to get started, and I decided, well I’m already here. So she had me lay on the table, face up, knees propped up by a pillow. It was comfortable. She used only my legs from the knees down, arms from the elbow down, and head. I was jumpy, not really looking forward to the needle placement. A few of them did make me jump, but some I didn’t feel at all. I think I flinched mostly out of anticipation. Unfortunately (according to me) she also placed a couple needles in each of my ears. Those I didn’t like. Mentally it creeps me out completely, and my right ear felt like a major pinch that wouldn’t go away. I had her adjust it, but I could still feel it.<\/p>\n
She set up a heat lamp above me to keep me warm and comfortable, told me that my job was just to relax, and slipped out the door. There was a music with gentle meditation music on, the room was dimly lit, a candle flickered on the shelf in the corner. I closed my eyes and tried to relax my body, since it was still a little tense from the needle placement nerves. It’s funny how sometimes you don’t realize you’re carrying tension until it leaves. When I took a few breaths my feet shifted as my leg muscles released the stance they were holding.<\/p>\n
I let my mind drift. At first I was thinking about acupuncture and then cycling, but I let it wander… I don’t remember where it went to. I must have zoned out, because I startled and opened my eyes – it took a few seconds for me to get my bearings. I took stock of my surroundings again, I could hear soft voices from the lobby, but no one was coming my way. I decided I was quite happy wherever I was, so I closed my eyes and zoned out again. Next time I came to the acupuncturist slipped back in the room and checked my pulse for a while on both sides. In the corner of the room she wrote in my folder, then left me alone again. I drifted for a while longer. I didn’t zone out again, I could feel my ear tweaking and my foot felt like it was brushing against something. When she returned again she removed all the needles, checking in with my chart a few times as she went. And then I was done.<\/p>\n
I was really shocked to see the time when I left – I had been there for an hour and a half. It certainly didn’t feel like it. I really wonder if I fell asleep.<\/p>\n
I’m still not ready to tell everyone acupuncture is wonderful – it could have just been the setting that let me relax. It did feel nice to have time in the middle of my day to meditate and de-stress, but like I said I do still have some hangups on the whole concept.<\/p>\n
My next appointment is next week. I guess I’ll just see how this progresses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I had my first acupuncture appointment yesterday. It left me feeling good, yet a little confused. I think the part I’m hung up on is how out-there it all sounds. Diagnosing me based on my pulse? I’m willing to take anything into consideration, but reading up on the theory behind it hasn’t helped me feel […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[209,208],"class_list":["post-2039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-acupuncture","tag-ivf-5"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2039"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2089,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2039\/revisions\/2089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}