Anyone who has known me for the past few years have heard about the occasional pain I've had in my hips and/or back. It's never really been something to ruin my day, but not anything I'd like to have around. I've gotten xrays and done physical therapy for it, but not keeping up on it hasn't done me any good. At any rate this is a story relating to this somehow!
I was talking to a friend of mine about her job. Turns out she is a Chinese medicine doctor and one of the things she does is acupuncture. I mentioned to her that I've always been curious about it but didn't have the guts. She told me that for friends she does it for free, and that if she can do it on a 4yo than I can do it. FINE!
So the next available day I had, I went over to the hospital that she worked at to do my first ever acupuncture appointment ever! When I finally got into my little corner with my bed and curtains for privacy, it suddenly dawned on me that I didn't know what the hell I was thinking. Someone is going to stick needles into me?? Come on! My friend asked me about my pain and what I should expect. Fine.
I get on the bed and she says she is going to do cupping on my back. Um. Hello?? I've heard of cupping and seen people walk around with these red circles all over their shoulders before. She shows me the cups and the little gun that belongs to it. All you have to do is put the cup on your skin, hook the gun into the top of it, and then pull the trigger repeatably until it sucks the amount of air you want out of the cup. Your skin gets pulled up into the cup and it is suppose to improve circulation. So she sticks them on my lower back, suck suck suck, and I decided it's not the best feeling ever. It felt as if someone had taken a nice tight grip on your back fat and won't let go. I was two seconds away from telling her to take them off when she put a heat lamp to my back and said she would be back in a few minutes. Uh well ok. It was so pinchy. Not a fan. The heat did make it bearable though. When she came back she put the little gun back on the cup and let the air back in. The feeling was so weird! All ripply and near indescribable.
Next step were the needles. I was told that if any of the needles made me uncomfortable to let her know. I have no idea what to expect, but ok. Truly the most shocking part was when she put a swab of alcohol on my skin before putting the needle in. I definitely felt the needle, but it was more like "oh. Yeah there it is." Then I didn't feel it. There were a couple of times when she put in the needle and my muscles started to spaz out like crazy! I was like NOPE NOPE NOPE so she would just pull it out and put it in another spot. The weirdest place she put a needle was in the back of my knee. Since this was a sensitive area I could tell there was something there. So I thought that cool, I'll lay here and chill. No. Apparently I wasn't finished. She then hooked up some of the needles with electricity! She sent a current though them! It was so strange. It felt like a light tapping on my skin where the needle was. I got the heat lamp again and I laid there for 20 minutes. Afterwards everything was turned off and pulled out and I was on my way.
This happened on April 30th, and I have not had any issues with that hip since. Glorious! Overall I would tell everyone to give it a try even if it is just for the experience. But honestly if I hadn't gotten it for free I probably would not have given it a go.
