this woman’s work

Brett sent me to an acupuncturist because he thought it would help my neck. I’ve got whiplash so instead of my neck curving, it goes straight up and down all bumpy and sad. I’ve got some degeneration between the vertebrae, too, which is what happens pre-arthritis. The thought of developing an arthritic neck terrifies me. There are mornings when I wake up and can’t turn my head to the right and I was in pain pretty much all of the time. Low-level aching with an increasing number of excrutiating days and it was scaring me to think that this would probably get worse as I got older. I’ve been to chiropractors off and on and generally had pretty good results. Then the last time I went, the doc cracked me before I was fully relaxed and I hurt for a week. I’ve been nervous about going back. I looked into Network Chiropractic last year but it was way too expensive since insurance wouldn’t cover it. I asked Brett to look over his benefits at work to see if he could find a physical therapist who used massage as one of his/her modalities. I wanted immediate relief and also long-term tools to avoid further injury. Instead he came home with a referral to an acupuncturist.

Brett went to an acupuncturist before for a chronic health problem that his doctor couldn’t fix. He tried Western medicine for a year and finally in desperation saw an acupuncturist. The acupuncturist cured him and his problem has never returned. Pretty compelling. But I didn’t think they could fix my problem because if you look at my x-rays, my neck is crooked and cramped. But Brett said pretty please try it and if it doesn’t work, I’ve got a list of physical therapists right here.

The acupuncturist I go to is Xuguang Gao. He’s very nice as his assistant/wife. They also do moxibustion and gua sha (they call it “rubbing method”) and ba guan (cupping).

Here’s how my appointments have gone so far:

I arrive and take off my shoes. They greet me and ask how I am. He usually feels my neck and says, “Here?” meaning that wherever he’s poking hurts. He’s always right (much like a chiropractor). Then I head into the treatment room where they leave me and I change into a gown then lie down on my stomach on one of those exam tables with a hole cut out for your face. One or both of them enter and he finds all the sore spots on my back and sometimes my legs. Very often he finds tender points that I didn’t even realize were bothering me (my neck hurts so much that other pain sometimes doesn’t register). Then he sticks pins in me.

It feels like a little mosquito bite (that’s how their literature describes it and it’s accurate) and then I either feel an electrical buzz or else the area around the needle goes pleasantly numb. I’ve had only three treatments so far and the buzz is getting steadily more present. They say that this is proof that the treatment is working and that my chi is circulating better. Having needles in my back is so relaxing that I usually start to feel very drowsy and a little stoned. The first time the change was really profound and my hands felt strangely huge and warm.

I get to lie there for a long time.

He comes in (they usually are coming in and out) and checks the needles. He adjusts them to make sure I’m still feeling them but am not in any pain. She will sometimes do the moxibustion, which is when she heats something up (I can’t see what, the literature says there are different kinds) and places it near the needles. Since the needles are in places where I have knots, it feels pretty marvelous. I heart moxibustion.

Then they take the needles out and I sit up, feeling very woozy and a bit tipsy and embarrassingly like I’m going to fall over. They put more needles in my neck and shoulders while I’m sitting up and maybe — if I’m lucky — do more moxibustion.

After that part of the session, they do cupping. Ok, now this part of it freaks Brett out. They take small glass balls with an opening at one end and heat them up and stick ‘em on the pressure points. They also have ones with magnets in them that they suction on by pulling the air out manually with a pumping mechanism. It doesn’t hurt but it must look pretty darn odd and now I have perfectly circular hickeys on my back and shoulders. Some of them are up towards my neck so in a t-shirt you can see it. I think strangers must wonder what it is I’m doing with myself to get those marks.

At the end of the cupping, the assistant rubs my shoulders and neck and scalp. I get dressed, pay $50 (and the treatment is 45 minutes to an hour so I’d say that’s a good price), stagger drunkenly to my car and drive slowly and carefully home.

I’ve noticed vast improvement; I can now turn my head to both the left and the right without pain. They said 6 treatments should fix me up although I may need maintenance perhaps once a month.

I have been thinking of asking them about my infertility problem except that while I want to fix whatever is wrong with me that makes me infertile, getting pregnant is no longer on the agenda. I’m not sure how to approach this.

In any case, I’ve been very grateful to see such improvement and I don’t feel as hopeless about my neck. I’m going to start lifting weights again (carefully) to strengthen my upper back because I’ve sorely neglected any exercise that would strain my neck or shoulders. I did play tennis a couple of times with the boys and paid for it dearly the week after. Brett’s commented, too, that my movements are much more natural now since I’m no longer favoring my neck when I talk or move around.

Now maybe I should give feng shui a try, huh?

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