About three months ago, a friend of mine approached me after small group, telling me she went to see an acupuncturist who had helped her a lot with some frustrating symptoms.  She had heard me mention several times in prior meetings how I had been having some stomach problems that came and left my life every now and then since I had turned 40- and that they had settled in for a pretty long visit over this summer.  Knowing my frustration with Western medicine, she said her doctor had helped her a lot, and that she thought he could probably help me out.  I responded that I would be happy to try whatever that would perhaps give me some answers, so she said great- she’d set up an appointment for me with him- and then she did, so I had to go see him.

On the evening of my first visit with him, I entered his office’s lobby with some anxiety which was partly fed by skepticism, and partly by the novelty of placing my body in the care of this Chinese shaman. Once I was sitting before him in his office, though, learning about him and listening to him interview me, I realized I wasn’t fully entrusting myself to a quack: he had some training and scientific reasoning behind his craft.

Once we got down to discussing my ailments, he took careful notes, and then he tried to give me a rudimentary introduction to Chinese medicine: when we are healthy, our body organs function with ease, but when some organ within us is not working optimally, our body is diseased, functioning at impaired levels.

The great moderator of health or illness in our body is tied to the effective flow of blood (and therefore, oxygen) in our bodies.  When our organs are working in a state of ease, our blood flow is ideal, which is evidenced in characteristics found in our pulse.  However, when one or several organs in our body are dis-eased, our body usually responds with inflammation.  Inflammation in an organ or region suggests impairment in that organ or region.  Acupuncture works to stimulate blood flow to specific regions in a body by the placement of needles at specific points on the body that are linked to specific organ functions.

After his introduction, he gave me a brief physical that was somewhat like what a Western physician would give, but with his added attention and quizzing me on how I felt when he pressed on several locations around my abdomen.

After the physical, he paused and wrote on his record sheet, and then he said he could help me- and he explained his regimen.  He would give me acupuncture treatments for my abdominal issues- but also test me each visit for differing allergens that might be affecting my condition.

Not fully understanding his intuitive and folk approaches, I nevertheless knew that several other people in my life had used acupuncture to effectively deal with nausea and pain issues in their lives.  In a state of partial giddiness and partial apprehension, I told him I would like to see if he could help me.  He said okay, and then asked me to lie down on the acupuncture table.

In a short time, he pinched the skin between my eyes into a small mound, and I felt a slight prick as he tapped a needle into it.  Within moments, he had tapped a needle into the middle of the ridge sitting in each ear.  Next, he tapped two into the inside center of my biceps up near where my arms intersected with the shoulders.  Next, one each near the insides of each wrist.  Then three arranged in a V around and under my belly button, one each on the front of each leg near the top of the shins, and then one each on the inside of each leg above the ankles.

“Okay, close your eyes and relax.”

Once the needles were in, he then turned on the music from the  CD player in the room, turned out the lights in the room, and left for a while.

The first evening I experienced a treatment, I felt an unusual and deep rush of emotions after he left the room- at first a giddiness at the surreal nature of the moment that then arched over into a deep sadness.  I cannot fully explain what was going inside of me that I felt these things, but I did, and they were pronounced enough I left his office with wet eyes.

In the following weeks, I return and see him, and he asks me how my stomach is doing.  He asks me a few other questions, and then he does his voodoo and listens to my pulse and looks at my tongue and he ‘sees’ what improvements my body is making and what changes in function are occurring.  I don’t fully understand what he or his science is doing, but I do recognize one important thing: I’ve been feeling better physically as he’s worked with me.

I feel like this science and these treatments are helping me.

I’m now at the point where when I visit him, the interview is brief.  The routine is down.  He tests me for a particular allergen.  In his mystical ways, he clears it for me, and then he pins me up.  I feel the needles a little bit more now when he plants them each week, surprising me that my body is more (rather than less) sensitive to their pricks.  Once the needles are in though, I trust him and his science- that they are doing the work, helping my body to heal the organs that are dis-eased.  And I’ve told myself to give him and the needles some time (heck- the Western stuff cost lots for tests and such which yielded nothing).

But perhaps the best part of each treatment now is the 40 minutes of motionless quietude I spend lying pinned on the table, my thoughts floating on a stream of Chinese folk music. Inevitably, once I get past the slight burning of a few of the needles stuck in sensitive areas on my body, I relax and my mind clears, and slumber surrounds me.  And I enjoy the rest of my Chinese nap.