Acupunctawhat?!

Had my first meet and greet with the acupuncturist last Thursday.  I have to say, as skeptical as I was walking in, I have never left a doctor’s office with a higher opinion of my caregiver.  This guy was awesome!  For the first time since entering into actively pursuing baby Holmes, I felt sincerely listened to and cared about.  He asked me about a million questions, and gave me specific, concrete things that I can start doing right now to improve the effectiveness of the treatments.  To my immediate dismay however, this meant giving up my one true love – diet coke.  *shudder*  To make matters worse, he also shot down my second most loved beverage – coffee.  Double ouch.  To subjugate his passionate bias against the aspartame in diet coke, and the Splenda in my coffee, he gave me tons of reading material.  Honestly, it made my skin crawl.  I can’t believe I’ve been putting that crap into my body for so long.  Seriously, I’ve always been the girl who started my day with a SUPER size coffee from Biggby and then drank coke like water throughout the rest of the day.  No wonder I’m out of whack.  Not only do I have to switch from coffee and coke to tea and water, but I have to really work on cutting out Nitrates and MSG.  Ugh!  I love me some Nitrate-dogs!  The one thing I could pat myself on the back of and be proud of was my general eating habits. I tend to eat about 6 small meals a day, and he insisted that he has been encouraging his patients to eat like that for year.  Yeah!  Go me!   Plus, I always eat a big salad with lots of vegetables and a boiled egg.  The doc loved that, but told me to increase my eggs to 2 per day.  Something tells me that I’m going to get really sick of eggs!   Oh, and he also gave me some reading material about a philosophy called the Doctrine of Signatures.  It’s fascinating!  After all this, the doc said he was pretty sure he could get my period to start within 2 to 3 months.  What??!  That’s amazing.  I’ve never had a doctor give me a definite answer before.  So, we’ll see, but for now, I’m holding him to that!

After chatting for about an hour, the real fun began.  Holy crow!  What a trip!  I didn’t feel any pain with the actual acupuncture whatsoever; shocking considering the needles were going in about ½” to an 1” (according to Henry as I couldn’t watch).  After place and adjusting all the needles, I was covered with a blanket, soft music began playing, and I was left along for about 25 minutes.  I almost fell asleep; I was so relaxed. 

Now here’s where it get’s weird.  I had the most bizarre reaction to all of this!  Once I got in my car and left, I got lost.  I could not figure out where the heck I was or where I was going. I was completed disoriented!  It was the craziest thing!  Once I found my way home, I jumped on my elliptical and pounded out 50 minutes of exercise.  Still pumping with energy, I spent the next 3 hours cleaning the crap out of my kitchen!  I haven’t felt so ALIVE in a long time.  My minimal research via Google revealed that this is common.  According to Wikipedia, TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) maintains that when energy is blocked in the body, it’s like a hose that has been kinked.  Once the hose is released, the energy is allowed to flow and has an initial overflow of energy that comes bursting out until ultimately stabilizing into a more consistent stream.  After the initial craziness of the 1^st day, I’ve experiencing a lot of cramping/ovary pain.  I don’t know what that means, but it’s gotta mean something, right?! 

So, as of today it’s been 4 days since my 1^st appointment, and I go again tomorrow.  I haven’t had any diet coke or coffee, and we’ve thrown out a lot of our most evil foods.  It hasn’t been too bad.  I’ve had terrible, terrible moments of crippling yearning for diet coke…or as I like to call it Ambrosia (aka Drink of the Gods).  But, I’ve heard it only takes 21 days to solidify a new habit.  Super…only 17 more looonngggg days to go.  I suppose, though, if this actually works, I won’t miss diet coke quite so much anymore.