29W6D: Acupoked!

I suppose I shall begin with the latest on Pterodactyl. ... There is no latest, except that she continues to move and squirm and I think she is bigger. I suppose it's news that not only COULD she survive if I gave birth right now, she probably would. Huh. Don't get me wrong, I'd prefer that Pterodactyl stay put for now. More mature lungs and additional baby fat are both pluses which are best obtained by an extended stay in Hotel Uterus.

Oh! Unexpected blessing of monetary nature! Apparently I magically got 60 more hours of paid vacation time, all of which I am forced to use this month during my extended medical leave. All right, all right, if you twist my arm, I will accept your money, fine... Seriously though. This means I can buy maternity pants! AND not starve in the next two months! WOO!

Anyway. I promised to share my acupuncture experience with you. I had an "evaluation" scheduled on Thursday. I ended up getting there early because I walked from another appointment and it wasn't worth going home and then travelling back to the same area. Because I was so early, I got to fill out all the paperwork that I otherwise would have done during the appointment (maybe hippies don't usually show up early for acupuncture?), so there was time for acupoking!

But first, the evaluation. 'Twas interesting. The acupuncturist pushed on both sides of each of my vertebrae and had me tell him which of them were tender. It was weird for me, I guess, since I have a lot of scar tissue there. I think that might be why he did it. It seemed to me like they were tender at random... either that or they were devoid of feeling at random. Whichever.

The next part was fun. I had to stick out my tongue and he looked at it. Apparently, acupuncturists can tell... something... from the color and shape of your tongue. I did ask, but I forgot because he said something about how it told him about fluids in the body and this sort of thing is pretty unfamiliar to me. (The Internet is a helpful resource and it refreshed my memory.) My tongue was pale and thickly coated... so apparently, according to the all-knowing Internet, I was dying. (He didn't tell me that.) But to be honest, I felt like it. I was SO stinking sick that morning.

He also felt my pulse. He showed me a diagram kind of like the one on this page, but I was pretty sick and wasn't really as interested in explanations as I would normally be.

And, of course, he went over everything I had written in the form I'd filled out. He was also fascinated by the ginormous bag of banana chips I had brought with me. ... I think to him I will always be Banana Chip Girl.

And now for the acupoking! I suppose I should clarify that the particular acupuncturist I saw practiced Japanese acupuncture, rather than the slightly more common Chinese variety. The Japanese kind is different mostly in two regards: first, fewer needles are used, and second, the placement of the needles is determined by touch instead of just visual guesstimating.

So--I was acupoked in seven places. One in a nausea point in each thigh, one in each wrist, one in each ear, and one more in the center of the back of my head. Acupuncture points are supposed to be located at strategic points around your nervous and circulatory system. Getting acupoked in one of these spots is supposed to improve blood and energy flow to that area and nourish starving/thirsty cells. The acupuncturist's analogy was straightening out a kinked water hose in a garden.

Here's my experience. He had me lie in a recliner (which he got out special for me since I was pregnant) and then he got out his super tiny needles. They looked more like... metal hairs... than what I would typically imagine at the word "needle". They were 0.14 mm thick.

Before the poking, I was feeling AWFUL. My head felt drained of blood, and I felt like I could pass out at any time. If you've ever been close to fainting, you'll know what I felt like. I felt very nauseous and was using a considerable amount of energy convincing myself not to vomit.

First needle--left ear. I felt some pressure, but more pleasantly, I could feel blood rushing back to my head. That felt wonderful. Second needle--right ear. That one was surprisingly painful (still only a minor discomfort), considering the painlessness of the left side, but I didn't care about that since even more blood rushed to my head. My thought: huh... I'm becoming suddenly lucid again. I had been thinking through mud and was now thinking through Sprite!

Third needle--left calf. Didn't feel it at all. Fourth needle--right calf. Felt that one... like a mosquito bite. Fifth needle--right wrist. This one also didn't feel very good. It stung for some reason. Sixth needle--left wrist. Couldn't feel it. The seventh and final needle--right in the back of my head on my crown. This one also stung a little, but like the ones in my ears, my head felt GREAT after the poke. Blood flow, glorious blood flow (think FOOD, GLORIOUS FOOD)! Then he left me alone for about ten minutes. By the time he came back, I wasn't nauseous. How peculiar.

I was thoughtful while sitting there during the alone time. To be completely honest, I was suspicious of myself whenever I thought I was feeling any improvement. I thought, "Really, self? Do you think it's the acupoking or the placebo effect?" "I don't know, self. But I'll take it. Studies say this is helpful, so maybe it is..." "Yeah, well, I don't think it's possible to design a double blind study of the effectiveness of acupuncture." "Oh. Well, this feels nice. Let's do it again." "... Fine. For science." "For fluffy, pink clouds and rainbows." "That too."

Moxibustion time. When the acupuncturist came back he burned some mugwort herb to fluff, and then took this cigar-shaped thing and kinda wiped the burned-up herb fluff onto the end of it. Then he kinda went all wizardy and wielded the thing like a wand, passing it back and forth about an inch over the skin where the acupoke needles were in each calf. That thing must have been super hot because I could feel the heat pretty intensely. I don't know what the herb was for, but I would guess at least part of the point was to increase blood flow right there.

The needle on my left ear decided it was done and fell out, but perhaps it just knew the acupunturist was done. He started taking the others out. Left ear needle must have eloped with some girl or something, because we couldn't find him.

After I left, I began feeling nauseous again within half an hour, but I at least didn't feel so woozy. That's a plus. Also... (and I don't know if this is a coincidence or not) my sleep that night was the most deep, restful, wonderful sleep I'd had in MONTHS. The next night was almost just as good, as well. And maybe I'm going crazy, but I think my tongue is pinker and much more thinly coated all of a sudden. In any case, the last few days I've felt pretty good!

Well, I'm supposed to go back seven more times--ideally, twice a week. I decided to do so, although I couldn't always quite get in two each week. Not gonna lie, I'm pretty excited. ... Also, I must be turning into a hippie. I think I'm okay with this.

Love and blood flow,
Jenna and Pterodactyl