Authored by Brittany Corwin
Before working at Wellness Minneapolis I had never had an acupuncture treatment. When I threw out my back this past Spring everyone in the clinic swept in to help me heal and feel better. The Naturopathic Doctors suggested taking fish oil and curcumin (turmeric) to reduce the inflammation around the injury and I got on the books for an acupuncture treatment that same day. I filled out the detailed health history form and sat down with Marian to talk it over. She asked me about my sleep, digestion, allergies, skin, and much more- really digging into daily symptoms and discomforts to understand the unique way my body works.
The treatment was focused on my injury, so I laid face down on the massage table with some comfy body pillows as she cleaned small patches of my back with an alcohol swab and placed a thin needle just under the surface. (The picture above is from my actual treatment!) Most of the needles I didn’t feel, and some made the muscles that had tightened around the injury give a little twitch. Once the needles were placed, I just relaxed for about 20 minutes. With this first treatment I didn’t feel the needles much while they were in and when Marian returned to remove them I didn’t experience any twitching muscles.
She followed up this treatment with a session of cupping in the same area. This was truly my favorite part of the experience! My lower back had been in a lot of pain that felt like tightness and compression in my spine. Rather than loosening this tightness by putting pressure on the muscles, the cups suction away the tension and brought me immediate relief. After 20 minutes my time was up, but I really didn’t want it to end, the cupping was the most powerful pain-reducer I had tried. I left with six perfectly round hickies on my back from the cups tight suction (that took about a week to fade) but it was well worth it! Later in the week I saw a chiropractor who was very happy I had started with acupuncture and supplements which both reduce inflammation and didn’t agitate the injury. I was told to wait a couple weeks to have massage while it healed.
My next acupuncture experience was with Emily, later the same week. She gave me a treatment that would continue to help my back heal without putting a single needle in it! This is called using distal points, or points along channels that would affect my tight muscles and healing spine but are some distance away from the area. Along with treating my back in this way, Emily was also able to treat my general “constitution”. I am someone who is always cold, digests slowly, has seasonal allergies, and other indicators of a qi deficiency. Both Marian and Emily had made note of this after talking through my health history, and could confirm the diagnosis by looking at my tongue! Emily placed needles above my knees, in my wrists and hands, and even one right in the middle of the top of my head. She swabbed each place with alcohol just as Marian did and checked in with me to see if I felt ok after each needle. This time as I laid on the table I felt waves of different sensations across each point. Sometimes the points in my wrists had a dull pain and were warm and tender, other times I could feel energy flowing in a line between the needles on my ankles and my knees. I was really surprised to notice changes in my body between the points or have sensations that were nowhere near a needle.
When I left I felt rested and aligned, I was able to stand normally without compensating for my back and even felt a release and suppleness in my upper back and shoulders that get tense even without injury.
Since then I have returned for acupuncture many times. I typically fall asleep during my treatments now and love how I feel when I leave. I always notice improvements in my skin, posture, stress level and sleep like a baby either as soon as I get home or the night after a treatment. I ask questions each time I am in and am slowly learning more about the Chinese medicine theory, but the results more than the rationale keep me coming back.
Try it and tell us about your first acupuncture experience!
