Tying in Chi

I've had a couple soirees with acupuncture, polar opposite experiences which had corresponding results. The first involved huge needles and rather mentally absent folks, leaving me with a severely cynical attitude towards the whole practice. It takes a lot to change my mind, but seriously, people - acupuncture is awesome.

My current acupuncturist is smart and conscientious, recognizing of the team sport aspect in my medical treatment and determined to simply add her stats to my roster. That is wonderfully reassuring, because purist health professionals are annoying. It's like being walked by someone wearing blinders who can't see that they're walking into cross-traffic.

The idea behind acupuncture - and Chinese medicine in general, I'm told - is to enhance the flow of chi to bring greater health and wellness to the body as a whole. I like this all-encompassing view of healing, because I can testify that when one part of the body breaks down, other parts soon follow. That includes mental functions, which are largely ignored in the Western sphere but play a huge part in physical illness and pain. Acupuncture brings all that together.

I initially had some issues with idea of needles - my skin is super sensitive, and I've never been a big fan of people sticking little pieces of metal into me. I've since learned that acupuncture needles come in different sizes, and after alerting my new practitioner to this she adjusted the diameter so that I don't feel them at all. Perhaps I've been desensitized by all the IVs I've had lately, but either way the sensation does not register any longer.

Treating general things has a domino effect on my health. Focusing on circulation moves blood through my injuries and helps my medicines get through my body to the site of my surgery. Working on sleep, digestion, and mood can greatly ease my pain. It's practical for someone to look at the whole body and say, okay, your spleen is sluggish, let's fix that and see if your pain goes down. Because, yes, we want the spleen to be at 100% when something else is broken. Duh.

As I'm slowly getting out of bed, it often feels like my body's breaking down. Having someone on the team who can deal with all the little things that break is reassuring, like I've just drafted the cleanup batter. I'm thinking acupuncture might do a whole heck of a lot for me. Grand slam.

photo credit: http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/files/imagecache/news/files/20070925_acupuncture.jpg