acupuncture

I was a total skeptic, not gonna lie. A friend of mine does it regularly for health maintenance, like some people (myself included) go to the chiropractor for health maintenance. I really thought it was probably a bunch of placebo, hocus pocus nonsense. But, it appears that I was wrong. Granted, my experience is purely anecdotal and only 2 weeks worth, but it's my experience nonetheless.

I was getting desperate with my nausea a couple of weeks ago. Seriously, desperate. I would have given just about anything to not be nauseous. Someone recommended acupuncture, so I threw sanity to the wind, called up a place in town and went for my first visit last Monday. It was $75 and about an hourish long.

First of all, the place smelled heavenly. That alone made me feel better. Not to mention she had this awesome water fountain chime thingy that made me almost fall asleep in the waiting area...but I digress. Once I was on the table, she put a needle in each forearm, 2 in my abdomen, one in each leg, and one in each foot. A couple of them hurt a little bit, but for the most part I didn't really even notice what she was doing. She was talking about energy and flow and stuff, so I just decided I'd pray to Jesus instead of really listening to her. Then I laid there, for like 20 minutes. I tried to take a nap, but I couldn't sleep knowing there were needles sticking out of me. She came back in, spun the needles around, then left for about 20 more minutes. Lastly, she put little golden ear balls (like stick on earrings) into my ears. They were for acupressure, and she said they'd fall out in 5-7 days. I left not knowing what to think of the whole thing.

I felt GREAT all week long. Barely any nausea at all. Then my ear thingies fell out on Saturday after I went swimming. Sunday I started feeling bad, and Monday and Tuesday were awful. Coincidence? Maybe. I asked Jason if I could go again though. Unfortunately, $75/week is just not in the ol' budget. So I called up Dr. Jackson at Jackson Chiropractic, knowing he does a form of acupuncture, too, but uses electrode stimulation instead of needles. His wife works at Christie, so I knew he wasn't crazy, and thought I'd give it a shot, knowing he'd take insurance and it would cost $15 instead of $75. He was super nice and understanding that I already have a great chiropractor, and said he'd be willing to just do acupuncture on me (instead of combining it with chiropractic) if it worked. So he gave me my first appointment free and said, "let me know how you feel. If it works, we'll keep it up." That was Wednesday morning. By lunch time on Wednesday, my nausea was gone, and by Wednesday night, I felt the BEST I have felt since I found out about the baby. I made dinner, actually COOKED, for the first time in 6 weeks. Home made soup and breadsticks certainly beats lean cuisines and frozen chicken nuggets. Today I felt great again, and made dinner  for the second night in a row. :) I called him up and told him I felt great, so we made an appointment for next week.

So, maybe it's the placebo effect, maybe not. Quite frankly, I don't really care. :)