acupuncture

Since 2012, I have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia. If you do not know, fibromyalgia is basically a pain disorder. According to the Mayo Clinic, it is a “disorder characterized by musculoskeletal pain accompanied by fatigue, sleep, memory and mood issues”. Basically, if you are in pain a lot of the time, you are going to have trouble sleeping. If you have trouble sleeping, you are going to have issues with fatigue, mood and memory because that is what your body works on while you sleep.

I was diagnosed after suffering a work related injury, also known as falling on marble steps. I had significant bruising which took months to heal and physical therapy to alleviate pain symptoms. During those months of pain, my brain chemistry changed and now I live with pain. Most days it is well managed and is not really noticeable. I have a much higher tolerance to withstanding pain than the rest of my family. I have techniques and little things I do to help get by day to day. If anyone is interested, I can go over those in a future post.

This post is about acupuncture. I sustained a piriformis injury last June. The piriformis is this little muscle in your butt. When it is injured and inflamed, it puts pressure on the nerves that run down your leg, like the sciatica. I tried physical therapy and over the counter pain killers. Doctors do not like handing out the good stuff for chronic pain issues. There is even a possibility I could have this pain the rest of my life. When it was really bad it felt like I was laying on a bed of nails and someone was pushing me down into the nails. The pain runs all the way from my butt down to my foot. At times, I have been unable to put weight on my foot because it is so excruciatingly painful.

After months of not getting anywhere with physical therapy, it was suggested that I try acupuncture. I was extremely skeptical, but figured it would not hurt to try because nothing else was working. I had to wait a couple months to get into the acupuncturist at my clinic, but it was worth the wait.

When I left my first acupuncture appointment, I did not feel any pain for about 24 hours. This is not a typical response, but it was the best day I have had in a long time. Just like that and I was hooked.

The piriformis pain comes and goes now and I am working with the acupuncturist to eliminate all the pain. Recently it has changed from stabbing pain into aching pain with stabbing only occurring when moving from sitting to standing.

I did not believe in acupuncture, but it has been quite an eye opening experience. The acupuncturist is able to ask if areas hurt and I do not think they do until she puts pressure on the area. She always knows where it should hurt! With all the pain it is hard for me to pinpoint where it comes from, but she just knows the body so well and how it connects that she finds all the hot spots with ease.

The first couple appointments when she put in the pins, I could feel my muscles move but I thought she was doing it. Later she showed me what happened when she put the needles in. The muscles move involuntarily. It was crazy to feel them twitch and know they were doing that by themselves. For me, the more the muscles twitch during the session the better I feel afterwards.

If you have been suffering from chronic pain, try acupuncture. I am now a believer.

(FYI: the needles they use look like little thumb tacks but the “needle” bit is so short!)