Meditation & Acupuncture

Today marks one week since I’ve been starting my day with mediation every day. Inspired by Tishi, I started out with 5 minutes, and I increased it to 10 minutes on Tuesday to participate in Tishi’s challenge. After one week, I can now report that this could very well be a life changing practice.

After meditating every morning, I feel calmer, more in control of my emotions, and generally better every day. And perhaps it's the increased oxygen from spending 10 minutes breathing very deeply, but I have a lot more energy. I’ve been waking up before my alarm the last couple of days, without being tired, which never happens for me. Also I’ve been able to move to decaf coffee for one of my two cups each day – next week I plan to go all decaf in time for the start of my period, and IUI cycle. So even though I question the effectiveness of my meditation while I’m actually doing it, as my thoughts continue to race, I think something’s working, and I plan to make this a life-long habit!

Then we have acupuncture. I’ve been going every week for about two months, and I love it! Even the Hubs has mentioned that I’m a lot less grumpy after I go, which for him helps justify the almost $400 per month price tag, especially considering he’s not a real believer in acupuncture. Overall, I can’t say enough good things about it! And then, there was last night’s session…

I felt great all day, my mood and energy were both good, and I went in for my weekly session. Dr. Kim asked how I was doing, and I told him, but then added that I have some tightness in my neck and shoulders, which I’ve had for a few days. So he said we were going to continue to work on the fertility stuff, and also do a little something for my pain in my neck and shoulders. I got on the table, face up, and he started inserting the needles. Normally I may feel a little zing here and there, and some spots are tenderer than others, but they’re not bad, and once the needles are in, there is no pain. Last night was very different. There were some spots right under my knees where he inserted needles, and I could feel a strong zing of electricity all the way through the soles of my feet! And he used some spots on my lower legs and feet that hurt much more than normal. But none of that compared to the two in my ears. I’ve had needles in my ears before, but they didn’t hurt like last night. And the pain didn’t subside!

When he left the room, I tried to use my meditation techniques and calm myself down, because my ears were hurting so bad. It took a long time, and then finally I fell asleep. I woke up a few minutes later, and my ears no longer hurt, but I felt weird. Dr. Kim came in, took the needles out, I got up and paid and left, but I still felt odd. I felt like I feel when I’m depressed, like a blanket of fogginess and despair was just thrown over me, and I couldn’t get out from underneath it. I drove home, found out that the Hubs had a work event so wasn’t coming home, and proceeded to get irrationally angry, and then ridiculously sad! I actually sat in my living room for an hour last night, and just cried! I don’t understand, I wasn’t actually sad about anything in particular, I just felt awful. Finally I went to bed, tried unsuccessfully to go to sleep before Hubs got home, and then told him when he got home that it was just best if we didn’t talk that night – not good…

I don’t know what it was, except it must have been the acupuncture in the pain points that are different from the fertility points releasing something. It was just so bizarre, feeling bad without having anything to feel bad about! Has anyone else experienced something like this with acupuncture?

I feel better today, and my neck and shoulders actually feel a lot better, so it must have worked. And I definitely will go back, but I hope this doesn’t happen again!