On Pins and Needles...by Juli

Well today I got to cross #11 {Try Acupuncture} off my list. Unlike the massage, or maybe because of the massage, I was significantly less nervous. I went with the recommendation of a friend and went to Wendy Thayer in Santa Rosa for the procedure. She is a very kind woman who took a lot of time hearing about my physical problems and amazingly {or unfortunately?} my list of grumbles grew to 3 pages, gulp! Just so we are all on the same page, for over a year I have been dealing with sciatica down my right leg caused by slight scoliosis and a bulging disc in my lower back. I am waaayyy better than last year but it is something that will never completely go away and I have to keep in check all the time. I also recently have been having the problem of my right hand going numb...a lot. I think it's the dreaded carpel tunnel, but I am refusing to let it win me over!

Wendy had 2 specific diagnosing techniques common to chinese medicine {yet oh so foreign to me}. She read my pulse in each wrist using 3 fingers in very specific places and that told her how generally my health was. I googled it when I got home and it is so interesting! {see here} She felt my pulse, reading it's depth, quality and frequency. Thankfully I got a good diagnosis, just a little week in the "liver" line which could have been related to the fact I recently finished my period {TMI, I know...sorry}. Then she asked to see my tongue...What? My tongue?! Yeah, so apparently your tongue tells a lot about you {see here}. She looked for shape, color, coating, texture. Ones again, alive and healthy.

Moving on with the appointment She put a line of needles {which are so petite they are more like fishing wire} down my spine and had me relax for 15 minutes. It wasn't painful at all and I felt really relaxed {the room was super warm and the music made me feel like I was sitting in a Japanese tea garden}. Those needles were targeting my tight back muscles right on spot. As for the wrist and sciatica she had me flip over {after the needles on my back were taken out, silly!} and put needles in my left hand/wrist {not the carpel tunnel hand} and also in my ankles/feet. She illustrated the theory of acupuncture this way: you turn on the light switch to turn on an overhead light. So you activated the energy to the light at another source, even on the opposite side of the room. That's how the energy lines in our body works too. So it is pretty common to have needles in the opposite limp of the injury/problem area. After another 15 minutes of the second set of needles I was so relaxed that I am sure I dosed off a few times.

She kindly gave me a homeopathic anti-inflammatory and I was on my way. The acupuncture had the same effect as the massage, it forced me to relax...which I am falling in love with. If you have thought of acupuncture I totally recommend Wendy Thayer, she is super sweet and she really knows her stuff!

Hmmm.....what to do next...