Over the holidays, my brother was back from school in Portland–he’s studying Eastern medicine, herbal and acupuncture. So what do you do when you have pain from RSI (carpal tunnel) and access to free acupuncture? Give it a try!
First, you should know that when it comes to needles, I’m a total and complete wimp. It helps keep me secure that I’ll never develop a heroin habit, because the idea of actually sticking myself with a needle nearly makes me pass out. The acupuncture needles themselves are actually quite small. My brother uses Japanese needles, which he claims are superior to Chinese needles because they are better made. They are more expensive, but you know, when you’ve got a stainless steel needle shoved two inches into your flesh, do you want to cheap out? No. I didn’t think so.
They come in these little tubes, which double as protection and an insertion guide. When you press them against your skin, they help pull the skin taught right around the point of insertion, making for a smoother and less painful stabbing. Actually, they don’t really hurt, they feel sort of like someone pinching you, nothing even close to a shot from a regular hypodermic, which by comparison, look like aluminum baseball bats.
The whole process involves a lot of poking before any needles even come out. Think pretty typical doctor, “Does this hurt? What about this?” kind of stuff. What gets odd is that, even though you have pain in your hands/wrists, you start getting your feet poked. In fact, for my wrist/hand pain, I received three needles in each foot, but only one in each arm. Go figure.
Once the needles are inserted, you just have to relax for about 20-25 minutes. Yeah, you have needles sticking out of your feed and arms, very conducive to relaxation, let me tell you. I just sat there, trying not to be too tense. It’s a very strange sensation, quite hard to describe. You can feel the needles in you, but I honestly couldn’t say how much of that was physical versus how much of that was psychological. I mean, it’s not every day you have needles poking in your flesh and then sit around. The most astonishing thing though is that you also start to feel… better.
When it’s time for the needles to come out, it’s a much easier process: yank. You actually feel them more coming out than you do when they went in, at least for me. Thankfully, there was no blood; just a tiny dot where the needle was that disappears almost instantly. No acupuncture track marks for me, shucks. Best of all, the pain in my wrists felt much better both during and after the treatment. My brother the doc said that the treatments can be effective for a few weeks, and I did spend the rest of my holidays pain free! I’d like to have the treatment again next semester after exams… I wonder if it works for pain in the ass?
Wow. I’m impressed. I would probably feel the neurotic urge to scratch wherever the needle is, or suddenly have to go to the bathroom. I can barely handle a massage, so I think I might have to be sedated for a needle treatment.
As far as pains in the ass + needles, that’s called voodoo dolls!
I got acupuncture for my wrists over the summer. It helped, although in later sessions the needles started to hurt and they didn’t have as much of an effect. I would try it again, with a different acupuncturist. (If your brother sets up shop in Boston, let me know!)
Really? Wow I really missed out on all these years when my relatives held these accupuncture sessions.
Do you *really* want to know where they stick the needles for pain in the ass?