Seven years after the beginning of my downward spiral, and numerous doctors and treatments and even exhausted hiatuses, I am trying acupuncture. I have been since maybe February.
When I first went in, I didn’t know if I would get any relief or benefit, but I didn’t expect any miraculous response either. It was just one more thing I was going to give a shot, and if it helped great, and if it didn’t then I could ignore the advice/wisdom that says acupuncture is good for my condition.
The dangerous ground is when you get a little bit of effect but it is not worth the effort or consequences. That could be the cost, or side-effects, or excessive effort to get the treatment that could be used more efficiently of other areas to improve, if not ones condition, ones quality of life.
Where am I taking this? My acupuncture. Its been babysteps and up til now fairly worth it. Let me note how.
In my acupuncture, I can’t affort more than one treatement a month. And thats with a 20 dollar discount. However, acupuncture is more than just the needles in the back. It is also chinese herbs. The improvements I see with the treatment are not tremendous or quick, but it is clear they all stem from the herbal treatment. I’m sure the needled stimulation helps, but the needle stimulation on its own isn’t doing much.
The sleeping herbs, before being supplanted with the LDN, were helping me get my sleep under some control. The herbal drink (kind of like a gritty coffee) was helping me regain my appetite and make my bowels more regular (both critical), far more effectively fight yeast than anything else, and after six months there was some light improvement of back pain that could have been attributed to my shiatsu massage therapy.
Before my latest treatment, I began to wonder if perhaps the greatest benefit I was getting of the actual needle treatment (not the herbs which clearly have an effect in their own right) was psychological. I don’t mean a psycological treatment of physical symptoms. I mean a treatment of the psyche, which we all can use to soothe the consequences of human experience, let alone if one is dealing with the myriad consequences of chronic illness. I’m isolated, not just physically, but emotionally and mentally. I am limited to a very small circle of people around me, which means I can’t go out and seek people who understand my perspective or even my language. Even without being sick, frequently I find people’s eyes glaze over when I start to talk….when my brain cooperates and my cognitive degeneration isn’t flaring up. That can make it even worse.
So I get to go once a month and socialize with someone who clearly shares spiritual and health beliefs and stimulates me to think on certain things I have missed. In that way it is most certainly soothing to the psyche. But was it doing anything for my body?
Thats a good question…I do believe its affecting my body at least in minor ways, and each time this comes when she tries something different. But overall, since my illness is a progressive remitting one (meaning it goes up and down all the time, but the peak after each dip over all is never as high as a few before it) it can be hard to know whether its making an over all dent until those little improvements have clearly taken hold AND remained over time.
But this is long, so I think what I actually experience during acupuncture deserves its own blog. What prompted this back ground fest, is that this last treatment really did a doozy on me and is giving me a strength in my hope it can help me when my hope was beginning to fade a little.
No comments:
Post a Comment