Acupuncture follow-up: after my 1st appointment

Jul 20, 2011

It’s sad, but my first acupuncture appointment will also be my last.

I must be one of those folks for whom being poked with needles is NOT relaxing. Which might just be a large chunk of the population, right?

I told him I was a horrible skeptic, but was giving it a shot because it was free. So at least he knew what he was up against.

Despite my skepticism, I went in with a relatively open mind. No, seriously, I did! I was ready to relax and get in touch with my alpha waves. 🙂

It was…interesting. Oddly, he had his dog in the office, a pug who breathed noisily, shed all over, and insisted upon being in the room during my session. Alrighty then.

I answered about a million questions, about everything from my diet to cramps and my menstrual cycle (awkward). Then I laid on the Table of Torture to get started.

He began by pushing on my belly and asking me to speak up if I felt discomfort. Not pain, per se, but something between “sunshine and puppies” but less than “ow.”  But when someone pushes on your belly, it’s always uncomfortable. I wasn’t sure what the right answers were. I’ve never had a practitioner ask me to speak up if I was feeling anything less than “OW, GODDAMMIT! STOP THAT!”

It was like being tested on the principles of nuclear physics — every response was a wild guess.  He’d press on my abdomen and ask, “How about here? Feel anything?”

I answered in the form of a question: “Um…. yes? Er…. maybe….. no?”

He nodded, poked me with some needles (which didn’t hurt at all, btw), and poked again. “Better?”

“Um… yes? Maybe?”

He left the room for 15 minutes, to let the needles “cook.” That mental picture is far from ideal. I don’t want anything metal and poked into my skin to “cook,” even if it is just an expression.

Plus, the Alpha State I was supposed to experience during the ‘cooking’ was 10 levels below the relaxation I get with a massage.  There were no random giraffes hopping into my consciousness (you know what I’m talking about — you’re thinking about work or laundry during a massage, you start drifting and next thing you know something random hops in: armless men on monkey bars! hippos in the backyard!).

No random wanderings for my brain. I laid on a table, with a furry dog sniffing around, wishing for a blanket. No, wait, that won’t work — I’m covered in flippin’ needles. Urgh.

Like I said before, I’m sure its great for some. The benefits of acupuncture while trying to conceive have been studied, and some say results are irrefutable. But after my first acupuncture experience, I’m fairly sure I’m in the pool of people who are better off just getting a rub-down at the local massage school.

At least now I can say I tried it — and better yet, it was free. Yippee!

About Me

Hiya! I'm Lydia. I live in Iowa with my husband and two children, both the result of iVF. I started this blog in 2011, so everything here's a wee bit... old. I don't do a ton of writing anymore... but I'm leaving the blog up, in case it's helpful for those who stumble across it.

Skip to the iVF

If you're going through infertility and want to see our journey, start in June 2011 (first two cycles) or January 2014 (third cycle). Hopefully reading about our rollercoaster with assisted reproduction brings you a little hope, and more than a few giggles. (Keep in mind that this information is over a decade old in most cases; please don't take anything you read here as medical advice. Consult your doctor for facts.)

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