prick me.
I have my very first acupuncture appointment tomorrow. I'm not nervous, despite the fact that I can't really remember the last time I actually chose to watch any needle that had to enter my body. At first, Bill and I were willing to lay $100 or so down on a visit to an acupuncturist because of its almost guaranteed effectiveness and the fact that it would be less expensive than a similarly priced visit to a specialist (in Western Medicine) plus whatever tests and meds I would need afterwords. However, there's apparently been a movement in recent times to sort of bring acupuncture back to the working class. The Community Acupuncture Network offers treatments with payments on a sliding scale, the most expensive of which are still less than half the price of a visit to any of the dozens of other clinics I've looked at.
The research on acupuncture over the past few days has left me confident as well as contemplative. I have every reason to believe acupuncture treatments will grant me some relief, and am almost excited for my visit tomorrow (one can understand my muted range of positive emotions these day). I've been thinking, a lot, about how these ancient methods and practices, most if not all of which have since been shrugged off or shunned by Western MDs due to their supposed lack of foundation on actual science, are being vouched for more and more by neurologists, physiologists, physical therapists, psychiatrists...
I mean, I just think it's really fucking neat that in the Iron Age (or perhaps even in Stone Age with the Bian Shi), a belief system was formed and perfected around the idea that thin, sharp objects, inserted into the body at precise points, in precise depths, will relieve pain, renew energy, prevent disease, and extend the lifespan. And then here we are, in the 21st god damn century, with the scientific backing for that exact notion, except we call it neurohormones like "endorphins" and "enkephalins" rather than "Qi".
Plus, there are studies showing that even sham acupuncture provides more relief than other forms of Western Medicine. For serious! Google that shit.
Acupuncture, Reiki, Ayurveda... I'll enjoy watching bits of evidence slowly drift into reach so that we can understand why these approaches work.
So I went onto the CAN website and found a place in West Philadilly. Hooray! I downloaded the forms to fill out here so that I could spend my extra twenty minutes getting lost while trying to find parking in Philadelphia and then finding my way back to the clinic on foot. Even the paperwork for this place makes me happy.
That's so sweet.
Soooo... That whole Obama infomercial thing happened tonight. Bill and I were such the disgusting image of a liberal couple today. After a long day of listening to hours and hours of NPR while working through samples for his environmental science job, we headed to our alternative therapy appointment in the clothes we wore yesterday, came home, cooked up our organic veggies, drank our microbrew beers, and settled in front of the television, me on the bed, Bill on the floor in front of me, his left hand in mine. We flipped to MSNBC and watched The Obama Show in silence with the exception of a few sniffles.... [I ADMIT IT I CRIED]... and then I blogged about it.
Bill said he "had the sniffles" too.
It's really clear why tears were falling. It wasn't any sense of patriotism, or the perfect slow motion footage of grains blowing in the breeze. It wasn't that each story was particularly straw-on-the-camel's-back heart breaking. It was that, for the first time in my entire life, I was experiencing what it feels like (A) to believe what a candidate was saying, (B) with that underlying faith that he, too, believed what he was saying, from the the perspective of a half-hetero (1), mixed-race (2), female (3), immigrant (4), peacenik (5), liberal (6) with health problems (7) and a penchant for hugging trees (8). As myself, I could have faith in this candidate. It was a strange, new, startling feeling to me, and that made me cry.
...it was also pretty scary to see that woman's arthritic hands. Bill and I shifted in our seats at the sight of her similarly perma-bent fingers.
Wish me luck.
The research on acupuncture over the past few days has left me confident as well as contemplative. I have every reason to believe acupuncture treatments will grant me some relief, and am almost excited for my visit tomorrow (one can understand my muted range of positive emotions these day). I've been thinking, a lot, about how these ancient methods and practices, most if not all of which have since been shrugged off or shunned by Western MDs due to their supposed lack of foundation on actual science, are being vouched for more and more by neurologists, physiologists, physical therapists, psychiatrists...
I mean, I just think it's really fucking neat that in the Iron Age (or perhaps even in Stone Age with the Bian Shi), a belief system was formed and perfected around the idea that thin, sharp objects, inserted into the body at precise points, in precise depths, will relieve pain, renew energy, prevent disease, and extend the lifespan. And then here we are, in the 21st god damn century, with the scientific backing for that exact notion, except we call it neurohormones like "endorphins" and "enkephalins" rather than "Qi".
Plus, there are studies showing that even sham acupuncture provides more relief than other forms of Western Medicine. For serious! Google that shit.
Acupuncture, Reiki, Ayurveda... I'll enjoy watching bits of evidence slowly drift into reach so that we can understand why these approaches work.
So I went onto the CAN website and found a place in West Philadilly. Hooray! I downloaded the forms to fill out here so that I could spend my extra twenty minutes getting lost while trying to find parking in Philadelphia and then finding my way back to the clinic on foot. Even the paperwork for this place makes me happy.
That's so sweet.
Soooo... That whole Obama infomercial thing happened tonight. Bill and I were such the disgusting image of a liberal couple today. After a long day of listening to hours and hours of NPR while working through samples for his environmental science job, we headed to our alternative therapy appointment in the clothes we wore yesterday, came home, cooked up our organic veggies, drank our microbrew beers, and settled in front of the television, me on the bed, Bill on the floor in front of me, his left hand in mine. We flipped to MSNBC and watched The Obama Show in silence with the exception of a few sniffles.... [I ADMIT IT I CRIED]... and then I blogged about it.
Bill said he "had the sniffles" too.
It's really clear why tears were falling. It wasn't any sense of patriotism, or the perfect slow motion footage of grains blowing in the breeze. It wasn't that each story was particularly straw-on-the-camel's-back heart breaking. It was that, for the first time in my entire life, I was experiencing what it feels like (A) to believe what a candidate was saying, (B) with that underlying faith that he, too, believed what he was saying, from the the perspective of a half-hetero (1), mixed-race (2), female (3), immigrant (4), peacenik (5), liberal (6) with health problems (7) and a penchant for hugging trees (8). As myself, I could have faith in this candidate. It was a strange, new, startling feeling to me, and that made me cry.
...it was also pretty scary to see that woman's arthritic hands. Bill and I shifted in our seats at the sight of her similarly perma-bent fingers.
Wish me luck.