Stick it to me, Part 2

I just got back from the acupuncturist. It was, to say the least, an interesting experience.

The office is in a nondescript professional building in Sandy Springs, just off of 285. The waiting area is pretty low-rent looking, with a haggard looking receptionist and lots of pictures of flowers with Chinese calligraphy. But the treatment room was very clean and professional looking.

Dr. Li is a tiny little woman who looks about 35 but is probably closer to 50. Shiny black straight hair cut in a blunt bob with bangs. First she did an interview/evaluation in which she asked about my insomnia, my general health, eating habits, etc. She took my blood pressure, which was fine, as it always is. Then she asked to look at my tongue. So I opened my mouth and showed her my tongue. She said, "hmmm..." in a way that made me self-conscious, and wrote some notes in Chinese. Then she felt the inside of each wrist, as if she were taking my pulse, but pressing on a number of different spots.

After feeling my wrist, she looked at me suspiciously, as if I'd been holding out on her, and said, "how long you have lower back pain?" I admitted that I'd had problems with my lower back since I was about 14, but that I didn't bring it up because I didn't think it was relevant to my sleep problems. She nodded, and told me that my kidney and blood energy levels were both low. "Chi very low. Should not be so low. Perhaps add to sleep problems."

She gave me some recommendations to aid relaxation generally. Some breathing exercises I'm supposed to do at night, plus I was told to avoid spicy food ("food too spicy not good for sleep") and to add more broth-based soups into my diet, especially later in the day. "Soup good for digestion, help you relax more."

Then we got down to business. I took off my shoes and lay down on my back on the table. She put needles on the top of my head, at the bottom of each temple, on my forehead between my eyebrows, on the tops of my wrists, on my arms near the crook of my elbow, and in my sternum. It didn't hurt at all. With each needle insertion, she would press down on the skin, wipe it with an antiseptic cloth, and then gently tap the needle in place with her finger, like she was hammering in a nail. Then she attached wires to the needles in my temples and sent electrical current into them. It wasn't a hard shock -- more like a mild pulsing. She turned off the lights, covered me with a blanket, and told me to close my eyes and listen to the classical music that was playing. I lay there for about 20 minutes, feeling more and more relaxed as the time went on. After 20 minutes, she came back in, turned on the lights, pulled out the needles, and told me to come back once more this week. "Then we make more plan. May take 3 to 5 time for you to sleep better. Try be patient."

And that was it. I have no idea if it worked (I guess I'll see tonight), but I'm cautiously optimistic. I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, I had soup for lunch.