So I had acupuncture yesterday. I have come to an endpoint in my search for pain relief, and I had very high hopes that this would help me.
I had 19 pins in me, not including the four gold spikes that remain in my ears for "endorphin release". The picture shows just my left ear, which is where there were five pins, and you can see the two gold spikes remaining.
Here's how it worked: I got into the exam room and had to take off everything but my undergarments (I was sure to wear non-holey undies this time since I FORGOT for the initial visit and ended up walking around the room with a doctor and nurse watching my rearend jiggle around in frayed undies). You know how those rooms are always just a little bit FRIGID? Well this was no exception. So I kept my socks on so I wouldn't freeze quite as fast. First thing the nurse did was take my socks off. I laid down and had a gown on, and a sheet covering me from my shoulders (not my arms) down to my knees. I WAS FREEZING. Then, just to make sure I would die of hypothermia, she took a little alcohol wipe and starting swabbing down random parts of my body: ears (inside and out), lateral knees, posterior knees, medial ankles, lateral forearms, and proximal thumbs. Oh yeah -- let's not forget my clavicles as well.
Then she left. Now might be a good time to draw a visual picture of this nurse. She is called Katie, although her nametag says Katherine. She is about 5'4" and 300 pounds. She has a distinct southern accent, and acts as though we are best friends. She also only does palp BPs (maybe because they don't have a cuff for her size so she's not used to real BPs?). She calls me "hun". She also speaks in fragments because she has to huff and puff at a significant elevated rate.
A moment later I hear a little whispering outside my door, and then the doctor comes in with his little torture cart. He has been amused by me since visit #1, so he is already kind of smirking when he says hello. I told him that stores aren't carrying bamboo plants right now, so he would have to wait until spring or summer to get one. I also told him that those pointed Chinese hats are hard to find, even on ebay. Hey -- he told me this was "eastern medicine" and I thought it would be more convincing if my pure white, late-50s, sweater-and-slacks doctor had some of the props to go with it.
Without further ado, I feel another alcohol wipe swabbing down the same areas as above. (Just in case?) Then, without really explaining anything, I feel him groping around on my ear, then a quick poke. He starts twisting the pin, and suddenly my left arm spasmodically flies off the table. He says, "There." One more time; same sequence. THEN he explains this to me. "You see, we put the pin in, then twist it until you either feel a dull ache or shooting pain from the site." (Something I learned in school about explaining a procedure BEFORE you do it.....?) He does a few more, which REALLY FREAKING HURT, then tells me he is going to put the spikes in. He had casually mentioned this in the past and I really didn't know anything about it, even after the explanation. No explanation today! A quick THUNK, and my ear was pierced! Then another one! He explains that those stay in and will fall out on their own. (He had also checked my eardrums to make sure they were intact for when the spikes fall out and into my ear.) He repeated this entire process on the other ear, then told me to flip over onto my stomach.
I obey.
Next thing I know he is swabbing my knee pits again and two more pins go in those! He TAPES them down, then tells me to flip back. I refer to myself as having "Mickey Mouse ears" because it feels like I have huge things shooting out all over my ears. (When my head is on the pillow, I can't turn my head because the pins are sticking out in all different directions.) He places the remaing pins in my legs, arms, ankles, and thumbs -- each time waiting for a reflex jerk to tell him when its "in". He seemed to be packing up, so I asked how long I had to lay there. He told me 20 minutes, and that I needed to lay completely still, without moving at all. I asked why I couldn't move at all, and he smirked again and said, "Well sometimes the pin goes through a tendon..... Well, you'll see." I figured he assumed I would probably move anyway, just to find out. I asked if there was any "bamboo" music and he said he'd have some the NEXT time I came (Ha!).
Suddenly he is gone, and Katie is back. She dims the lights and tells me she will be coming back in a couple times to twist the pins some more, stating that it "reenergizes" the nerves. She leaves and I am laying there -- compleely stuck (no pun intended). I can't move, I can't sleep, and I can stop thinking about how EVERYTHING itches. Eventually I drift off a bit, just as Katie comes back in to reenergize my nerves. In all honestly this didn't hurt at all, although I can't figure out why not. I drifted off to sleep again, then the doctor was back in. He flicks on the lights, and starts yanking pins out of me. I hear them clinking into the metal tray wondering exactly how many were stuck in me.
Then he is gone again, and Katie is back again. She tells me to get up slowly and "stretch" a little, then to get dressed.
When she comes back she has "instructions" for me. Its a long list of things I have to do with the spikes in my ears. I have to clean them with alcohol, "energize" them with magnets a total of 1 minute or more each day, and tape cotton balls over them when sleeping or showering.
If you thought I was sexy before, you should have seen me with cotton balls taped to my head. HOT! Its a little weird sleeping on a cotton ball, and even weirder trying to shower and wash your hair with cotton balls taped to your ears. And they HURT. A LOT! There are big bruises, bloody streaks, and remaining holes all over them. My kids look at me as though I am an alien, and if I wear something black I feel just a little goth.
That's the end of the story. The best part is that my insurance has decided they don't want to pay for it after all so I get to spend $76 on this torture.
To make this very long story short, DON'T DO IT! I will say that while the pins were in, my left SI and left shoulder pain did resolve. But the second they were yanked out the pain returned. The pins hurt EXTREMELY much going in and being "adjusted" and hurt coming out too. He wants me to come back once more this week (yeah, right) and twice next week (yeah, right).
I'm not going back. I can spend my $76 on massage therapy, which keeps me WARM and seems to work without significant pain.
The End.
I had 19 pins in me, not including the four gold spikes that remain in my ears for "endorphin release". The picture shows just my left ear, which is where there were five pins, and you can see the two gold spikes remaining.
Here's how it worked: I got into the exam room and had to take off everything but my undergarments (I was sure to wear non-holey undies this time since I FORGOT for the initial visit and ended up walking around the room with a doctor and nurse watching my rearend jiggle around in frayed undies). You know how those rooms are always just a little bit FRIGID? Well this was no exception. So I kept my socks on so I wouldn't freeze quite as fast. First thing the nurse did was take my socks off. I laid down and had a gown on, and a sheet covering me from my shoulders (not my arms) down to my knees. I WAS FREEZING. Then, just to make sure I would die of hypothermia, she took a little alcohol wipe and starting swabbing down random parts of my body: ears (inside and out), lateral knees, posterior knees, medial ankles, lateral forearms, and proximal thumbs. Oh yeah -- let's not forget my clavicles as well.
Then she left. Now might be a good time to draw a visual picture of this nurse. She is called Katie, although her nametag says Katherine. She is about 5'4" and 300 pounds. She has a distinct southern accent, and acts as though we are best friends. She also only does palp BPs (maybe because they don't have a cuff for her size so she's not used to real BPs?). She calls me "hun". She also speaks in fragments because she has to huff and puff at a significant elevated rate.
A moment later I hear a little whispering outside my door, and then the doctor comes in with his little torture cart. He has been amused by me since visit #1, so he is already kind of smirking when he says hello. I told him that stores aren't carrying bamboo plants right now, so he would have to wait until spring or summer to get one. I also told him that those pointed Chinese hats are hard to find, even on ebay. Hey -- he told me this was "eastern medicine" and I thought it would be more convincing if my pure white, late-50s, sweater-and-slacks doctor had some of the props to go with it.
Without further ado, I feel another alcohol wipe swabbing down the same areas as above. (Just in case?) Then, without really explaining anything, I feel him groping around on my ear, then a quick poke. He starts twisting the pin, and suddenly my left arm spasmodically flies off the table. He says, "There." One more time; same sequence. THEN he explains this to me. "You see, we put the pin in, then twist it until you either feel a dull ache or shooting pain from the site." (Something I learned in school about explaining a procedure BEFORE you do it.....?) He does a few more, which REALLY FREAKING HURT, then tells me he is going to put the spikes in. He had casually mentioned this in the past and I really didn't know anything about it, even after the explanation. No explanation today! A quick THUNK, and my ear was pierced! Then another one! He explains that those stay in and will fall out on their own. (He had also checked my eardrums to make sure they were intact for when the spikes fall out and into my ear.) He repeated this entire process on the other ear, then told me to flip over onto my stomach.
I obey.
Next thing I know he is swabbing my knee pits again and two more pins go in those! He TAPES them down, then tells me to flip back. I refer to myself as having "Mickey Mouse ears" because it feels like I have huge things shooting out all over my ears. (When my head is on the pillow, I can't turn my head because the pins are sticking out in all different directions.) He places the remaing pins in my legs, arms, ankles, and thumbs -- each time waiting for a reflex jerk to tell him when its "in". He seemed to be packing up, so I asked how long I had to lay there. He told me 20 minutes, and that I needed to lay completely still, without moving at all. I asked why I couldn't move at all, and he smirked again and said, "Well sometimes the pin goes through a tendon..... Well, you'll see." I figured he assumed I would probably move anyway, just to find out. I asked if there was any "bamboo" music and he said he'd have some the NEXT time I came (Ha!).
Suddenly he is gone, and Katie is back. She dims the lights and tells me she will be coming back in a couple times to twist the pins some more, stating that it "reenergizes" the nerves. She leaves and I am laying there -- compleely stuck (no pun intended). I can't move, I can't sleep, and I can stop thinking about how EVERYTHING itches. Eventually I drift off a bit, just as Katie comes back in to reenergize my nerves. In all honestly this didn't hurt at all, although I can't figure out why not. I drifted off to sleep again, then the doctor was back in. He flicks on the lights, and starts yanking pins out of me. I hear them clinking into the metal tray wondering exactly how many were stuck in me.
Then he is gone again, and Katie is back again. She tells me to get up slowly and "stretch" a little, then to get dressed.
When she comes back she has "instructions" for me. Its a long list of things I have to do with the spikes in my ears. I have to clean them with alcohol, "energize" them with magnets a total of 1 minute or more each day, and tape cotton balls over them when sleeping or showering.
If you thought I was sexy before, you should have seen me with cotton balls taped to my head. HOT! Its a little weird sleeping on a cotton ball, and even weirder trying to shower and wash your hair with cotton balls taped to your ears. And they HURT. A LOT! There are big bruises, bloody streaks, and remaining holes all over them. My kids look at me as though I am an alien, and if I wear something black I feel just a little goth.
That's the end of the story. The best part is that my insurance has decided they don't want to pay for it after all so I get to spend $76 on this torture.
To make this very long story short, DON'T DO IT! I will say that while the pins were in, my left SI and left shoulder pain did resolve. But the second they were yanked out the pain returned. The pins hurt EXTREMELY much going in and being "adjusted" and hurt coming out too. He wants me to come back once more this week (yeah, right) and twice next week (yeah, right).
I'm not going back. I can spend my $76 on massage therapy, which keeps me WARM and seems to work without significant pain.
The End.
1 comment:
Very interesting. Seriously. Have the things in your ears fallen out yet?
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