Needles & Pins
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My first two acupuncture treatments were done today.
And I actually felt a little improvment. Not much. Nothing dramatic. But a tiny little. Better than nothing. It was almost funny. Towards the end of the second treatment the acupuncturist came in and said he had a little trick he wanted to try, to see if we couldn’t get me to see better quickly. Then he showed me a sign with a bunch of letters. I could read the top two lines. The third not really. Then he changed my position and put in some new needles and left for 4-5 minutes. When he came back he held up the sign again. And I could read the third line. Not completely clearly wonderfully. But better than before. That’s kind of remarkable isn’t it, five minutes with some needles in you and you see better. He smiled and said that it almost always worked, that little “trick”. And he said that it was a good sign for my treatments.
So there does seem to be something to this acupuncture. I remain skeptical and do not want to get my hopes up still. It was a tiny improvement. Maybe it was psychosomatic, maybe it was luck, maybe it’s temporary, maybe it’s all I’ll get out of this. So there’s no reason to sing and dance about it. But it’s a start. And a good one.
Let’s me tell you about the whole day why don’t we?
I was picked up at 8.45 by my dad and uncle Jens. The drive took about an hour and a half. For me that is a long drive. But it’s certainly better than a three hour train ride. I sat in the back seat and tried not to fall asleep. While my dad played GPS and read out instructions to Jens. A lot of the instructions were “drive x kilometres until you reach a roundabout. Then go striaght”. With green fields flashing by outside.
We got there with 10 minutes to spare. A small town. A moderately sized white building housing the clinic. Stiff legs after the long drive. We went inside and introduced ourselves to the receptionist. Were shown to a waiting area. An old couple arrived at the same time as us. In fact pretty much all the other patients I saw were old people. I guess I am special.
Before too long the acupuncturist invited me in to his office for a quick talk. I had filled out some papers with questions about my problems and health and things like that. He typed some stuff into his computer while we talked. When he heard that I had been diagnosed with diabetes in November he seemed almost shocked at how quickly my sight had gone downhill. “We’ll have to do something about that” he said. He seemed very sympathetic, I got the feeling that he really cared and wanted to help. That’s always a good feeling to get.
He had on a headset. A couple of times he got a phonecall patched through and he’d take it over the headset while doing other things. There was some guy from Finland calling. The acupuncturist talked to him in some kind of mixture of Danish and Swedish. Quite funny. And he was a jolly sort of fellow. Not in a brash or loud way, but just in a friendly, down to earth sort of way. I did get a very good impression of him. Everyone seemed quite nice in fact. It’s something of a family business. The Senior is doing research and papers and such. The Junior is the main acupuncturist I think. While he is the junion, he was not exactly young. And his own son also worked as receptionist and helper, as far as I could tell. And the daughter in law minded the phones, she spoke German very well I could hear on occasion. They have a very international clientele.
I got my sight tested. That was the bad news. Worse again. 2-3% on the left, 5% on the right. Geez. 2-3%. There’s not a lot left to give. But the test was right, I have felt it get worse since the cataracts exam last Wednesday. At this point I am glad I did not wait with the acupuncture. I think it was a good thing that we got started right away after all.
I was shown to a bed. There were no rooms, the beds were all separated by curtains. And all the doors in the building were open so you could always hear phonecalls and other patients and people in the waiting room. I was told that it was okay to leave the clinic during the one hour break between treatments, so my dad and Jens decided to stay in the waiting room while I got the first treatment and then we could all go get something to eat during the break.
We had to bring our own sheet for the bed. So I put that on and took off my socks and shoes and laid down. I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect, I had this mental image of 50 needles stuck in all parts of my body. But it turned out to only be 6 needles. Two in my forehead. Around the eyebrows I think. One in each hand, around the thumb. And one in each foot, around the big toe. It hurt a little when he put them in, but nothing too bad. And that was it. Then I just lay there and stared at the ceiling for 30 minutes. Listening to the calm muzak. It sounded like panpipe versions of classic popsongs. Or something to that effect.
When the session was done we drove into (the small) town. There was one place to eat. A pizzeria. They served very big portions. We’re probably going to bring our own food from now on. But it was nice anyway, I had what the English would call Fish’n’Chips I believe. Fish and french fries. A big meal that early in the day, but good nonetheless. The pizzeria owner was sitting outside enjoying the sunshine when we came. We were the only people there. The place only fills up later, he explained. And then he went outside in the sunshine again while we ate our food. They didn’t have any sugarfree soda so I just got a glass of plain water.
Then we went back to the clinic. And I went back on the bed. Same procedure as the first time. Only interrupted by his “trick”.
And then it was over. And we had another long drive where I tried not to fall asleep. I was back home around 2:30 pm.
All in all it went very well. Nothing scary about it. Everyone very nice. Some signs that it might have some kind of effect. I’m happy with it. I also got some good news. I mentioned that Jens wouldn’t be able to drive for some of the second week, right? Most of it really. Well I suggested that perhaps we could postpone the second round of treatments for a week, and then Jens would be able to drive the following week. They talked to the acupuncturist about it and he said that it wouldn’t be a problem to have a break in the treatment. So that’s what we’ll do. i’ll have treatments this week. Then next week we’ll have a break. And then the next week we’ll go back for the last treatments. With Jens driving all the days. I felt a little bad about suggesting it, because I don’t want to be taking advantage of Jens or anything. But it really means a lot to me that he will do it. Three hours in a car as opposed to six hours in a train. That’s a huge difference to me. It means I can do this and still feel reasonably okay. Not dread the days too much. So that’s really good news. I’ll have to get Jens something nice when this is all done, as a thank you. Whether the treatments work or not.
And that’s all for now. Tomorrow is another round.
This entry was posted on Monday, April 27th, 2009 at 21:04 and is filed under Blogging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
4 Responses to “Needles & Pins”
1. Debster Says:
April 28th, 2009 at 1:29
I’m so glad it went well for you. We were thinking about you all day and hoping it wasn’t too awfully unpleasant.
Sounds like the people are very nice and caring. That helps lots to make a person feel more at ease in a new procedure.
I’m so proud of you asking about a break in the treatments. The old Plume wouldn’t have said anything. Good for you for even asking and then finding out you could have a break.
Your Uncle Jens is quite a nice guy. Sure glad he was able to be there for you. And your Dad, too.
Well, we finally got Snickers hooves trimmed on Sunday. The hoof trimmer and his son came and it went smoothly. They had a loose cotton rope around her neck and then looped it around her front legs. When she figured out she wasn’t going anywhere, she dropped to the ground and we rolled her on her side.
He then looped the rope around her back legs and gave the end of the rope to his son. He cleaned out the hoof with a sharp knife, took his nippers and took off some of the hoof that was overgrown, and then used a rasp to file away any rough areas on the hoof.
The other three hooves went the same way and then he loosened the rope, Snickers stood up, and she acted just fine. Wow! What a nice surprise. The whole procedure took less than 1/2 hour.
He will be back in 6 weeks to take off some more of the hoof and see how she is doing. He said horses usually figure out after being layed down a time or two that it’s much easier and nicer to just stand quietly and let the hoof trimmer do his work. Let’s hope Snickers figures this out as well.
Good luck on your next treatments! (Are things greening up in your area? We have all kinds of lovely green grass and blooming things right now.)
2. Valja Says:
April 28th, 2009 at 2:15
I am glad your treatment went alright, and that you got a good impression of your doctor. That’s great. :) I have to admit, I would have been incredibly scared of the needles and probably would have freaked out if they were stuck anywhere near my eyes — you’re one brave Plume, in so many ways. Well done!
*hugs and more good chi*
3. Katrine Says:
April 28th, 2009 at 9:05
So glad to hear that it went so well! Best of luck with the rest of the treatments!
4. Plume Says:
April 28th, 2009 at 22:15
Debster – It wasn’t awful at all, thankfully. And they were all very nice. That helped a lot of course.
Wow, that was quite an ordeal with Snickers. I wonder if she would respond favourably to acupuncture? Heehee. I remember when Mads had to have his hooves trimmed. Per and Kurt were handling him, but he thought that they were going to try to wash him down below. He had fungus sometimes and he always HATED being washed there. So when they grabbed him and tried to get him to raise his leg he immediately just sat down on the ground so no one could get to his downstairs department. I think he was relieved when he found that they were only after his hooves.
You didn’t miss the goat boys fight club video did you? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3w4Mg_u-RI
in case you did. And yes, we are starting to get a little green back. The goats will enjoy that.
Valja – Hehe, thank you. I’m very, very brave. Or maybe the guy just didn’t tell me that he was going to stick ‘em in my forehead and he caught me by surprise.. maybe. I’ll never tell. It wasn’t too bad though. Kinda odd though to look up and see a couple of needles sticking out of your head.
Katrine – Thank you!