Acupuncture and Me

So I went to the acupuncturist yesterday afternoon for my first official visit. Melissa was going to keep it simple today, probably since it was my first time and all. We discussed a little about how I was feeling since I last saw her, and I told her it's been a pretty easy week for me. We discussed some of the nutritional guidelines she suggested in a PDF she sent me earlier, like switching to a more natural sweetener like stevia, the herbal tea she's prescribing, and the spirulina stuff.

She gave me some samples of the stevia, which I haven't tried yet. It's commercially available in pharmacies as "pure" or with "filler" so you can use it somewhat similarly to regular sugar. This stuff is super sweet, apparently. One single serving packet with "filler" (inulin fiber, if you're curious) is equivalent to 2 tsp of sugar. You can get the liquid stevia in a purer form and actually need only 2-3 drops to sweeten your coffee! It has 0 calories, no impact on glycemic index and is sooo much better for you than sugar and way better than those artificial sweeteners like aspartame found in Equal or NutriSweet (which has been linked to cancer...google it).

To give you an idea of how sweet it is I found a recipe online for 4 dozen chocolate chip cookies and it requires only 1/2 teaspoon of stevia powder!

I'm considering switching over eventually....when I can handle all the other changes in my diet well enough. :)

I didn't have to disrobe for the session: I just rolled up my pants to my knee. Melissa started with my left leg, asked me take a deep breath in and when I breathed out, she popped the needle in. Having had taken blood tests, donated blood and even taken a flu shot just the other day, it was actually a joke that people are actually scared of acupuncture! There's no pain, just a tiny prick, not even like that of a blood lancet where it's quick but quite sharp.

She asked me if there was anything I left, like numbing, tingling, warming, anything but not pain. Hmph, I felt nothing. I was hoping it was because I'm not in tune with my body yet and not that I was really a skeptic. She dropped another needle in the soft tissue between my index finger and thumb on my left hand...still nothing. But once she did the same for the right hand, I started to feel a warming crawling up my arm. It wasn't strong, but it was surely there. She says that's good, and that she could still that my body was already responding to before that moment.

I think she put 3 or 4 in each leg and one on each hand. Then she moved to the head of the bed. Um, where was going to put it? On my face?

She found a spot on my scalp but, funny, I didn't feel a thing.

She left me alone in the room for 10 minutes, to dream about things, relax. Take myself somewhere, she said. I listened to calming Orient music in the background, as the heater she placed by my feet warmed be up....

I was thinking about something, when she walked in again. Was that 10 minutes?

She wiggled the needles a bit and then left me alone for another 10-15 minutes.

I swear she walked in after 5....though I couldn't figure out what I was thinking about when she interrupted me!

I must have been at the verge of falling asleep, because I'm sure I was thinking about something. Melissa routinely finds people asleep when she returns, some fallng asleep as the first needle goes in. I'd hate to be found snoring!

At reception, I paid for my treatment, my herbs, and the bottle of spirulina, and left relaxed and calm. Little did I know that it would backfire later that night.

I was driving to a friend's house with my two-year old son in the back and it was just raining down like I haven't seen in a while. With him screaming at me to change the CD in the deck to me concentrating on the road, I just lost and and was screaming at the top of my lungs, not really at him, but to the world in general, I guess. I screamed so loud and verociously that I screwed up my throat. I pumped the music really loud to drown out everything, my son, even my own thoughts. Everything today, the calmness, the zen, the relaxation, right out the friggen window.

Where's Melissa now?