new adventures in alternative medicine
I've been going to the acupuncturist for about 8 months now. I really enjoy it. It's very relaxing, and I've had some treatments that have felt very powerful. The strangest/most intense ones are when I have 5 needles in each ear! I'm still doing my chicken broth in the morning periodically. But I haven't been improving at the rate she hoped I would be. My pulses are still pretty weak (even though they have improved some lately), and the packaged herbs she gave me to take for several cycles didn't do what they were supposed to do in terms of regulating it. So she referred me to an herbalist she works with to do a more customized herbal formula. Herbs can work faster and more directly than acupuncture, which can take a long time in some people.
So, I had my first appointment this week. It was almost 90 minutes long, and was an extended taking of my medical history. [And I would like to point out that both the acupuncturist and herbalist took more complete, detailed medical histories than any mainstream medical practitioner EVER has.] Mary (the herbalist), used to be a nurse practitioner for like 20 years, so she's very experienced in working with women and women's health issues. When we were done with the bulk of the medical history she said that a lot of my symptoms are consistently part of the same problem, which is good because she knows how to target it (instead of a bunch of random symptoms that don't fit into a pattern). Apparently, being cold all the time, wanting to eat all the time, and being irritable and cranky all the time (and other things I won't describe for you) are all related! And some of the food cravings I have also fit into the picture. (I've been craving deep purple and red fruits and veggies all summer; I'll go to the store and come back with eggplant, beets, cherries, and grape juice with F wondering what on earth I'm going to make for dinner.) It meant a lot that we talked about the fact that my mom died 18 months ago, and we talked about my process of grief and how I had been dealing with that, because grief affects yours body and it's important to take that into account. And we talked about my interest in midwifery, pregnancy and childbirth.
So she's put together a collection of herbs that will work on liver regulation and building up my blood. I'll boil it down and make a syrup out of it that I take 3 times a day for a few weeks and then check back in with her. I'm sure that sounds completely whacked out weird, but I've come to have so much more faith in that than regular medicine. So, I'm really optimistic about Mary the herbalist.
Seeing the fertility dudes (okay, technically they are called "Reproductive Endocrinologists") was really unhelpful, demeaning, and just frustrating. They had such an attitude of "We are Gods; We will give you a baby if you just do what We tell you", but then after multiple blood tests and TV ultrasounds, they were like, "yeah, you're in the 25% of people who we can't identify why you haven't been able to conceive, so take this drug and come in for an IUI." If you don't know what the problem is, why do you think your drugs will work, jerk? They never listened to anything I had to say about how my body acted, or anything that involved my intuition about the body that I've lived in for 33 years. Whereas in alternative medicine, they want you to listen to your body and to think about the message it is giving you, and we've lost a lot of the ability to do that because doctors have been taught to rely on their MRIs and blood tests, and we've been taught to listen to doctors. (Now, I'm not all down on modern medicine - it obviously saves lives and technology has made some really miraculous things possible; what I'm talking about it balance and encouraging individuals to be in touch with their own bodies.) I'm not sure when I got to be so 'crunchy' - next thing you know I'll be talking about eating my own placenta!
So, I had my first appointment this week. It was almost 90 minutes long, and was an extended taking of my medical history. [And I would like to point out that both the acupuncturist and herbalist took more complete, detailed medical histories than any mainstream medical practitioner EVER has.] Mary (the herbalist), used to be a nurse practitioner for like 20 years, so she's very experienced in working with women and women's health issues. When we were done with the bulk of the medical history she said that a lot of my symptoms are consistently part of the same problem, which is good because she knows how to target it (instead of a bunch of random symptoms that don't fit into a pattern). Apparently, being cold all the time, wanting to eat all the time, and being irritable and cranky all the time (and other things I won't describe for you) are all related! And some of the food cravings I have also fit into the picture. (I've been craving deep purple and red fruits and veggies all summer; I'll go to the store and come back with eggplant, beets, cherries, and grape juice with F wondering what on earth I'm going to make for dinner.) It meant a lot that we talked about the fact that my mom died 18 months ago, and we talked about my process of grief and how I had been dealing with that, because grief affects yours body and it's important to take that into account. And we talked about my interest in midwifery, pregnancy and childbirth.
So she's put together a collection of herbs that will work on liver regulation and building up my blood. I'll boil it down and make a syrup out of it that I take 3 times a day for a few weeks and then check back in with her. I'm sure that sounds completely whacked out weird, but I've come to have so much more faith in that than regular medicine. So, I'm really optimistic about Mary the herbalist.
Seeing the fertility dudes (okay, technically they are called "Reproductive Endocrinologists") was really unhelpful, demeaning, and just frustrating. They had such an attitude of "We are Gods; We will give you a baby if you just do what We tell you", but then after multiple blood tests and TV ultrasounds, they were like, "yeah, you're in the 25% of people who we can't identify why you haven't been able to conceive, so take this drug and come in for an IUI." If you don't know what the problem is, why do you think your drugs will work, jerk? They never listened to anything I had to say about how my body acted, or anything that involved my intuition about the body that I've lived in for 33 years. Whereas in alternative medicine, they want you to listen to your body and to think about the message it is giving you, and we've lost a lot of the ability to do that because doctors have been taught to rely on their MRIs and blood tests, and we've been taught to listen to doctors. (Now, I'm not all down on modern medicine - it obviously saves lives and technology has made some really miraculous things possible; what I'm talking about it balance and encouraging individuals to be in touch with their own bodies.) I'm not sure when I got to be so 'crunchy' - next thing you know I'll be talking about eating my own placenta!