Friday, April 9, 2010

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!

7 comments:

  1. That's very weird. I haven't experienced that, though I did have a major dizziness (to the point of nausea) episode the evening after one of my appointments. But I've never had any needles in any points in my ears. You should definitely tell Dr. Kim about it next time and see if he says that's to be expected.

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  2. Wow, I think you should talk to him about that, the acupuncturist. He may have some insight into why that happened. Did the pain in your shoulders subside?

    So glad the meditation is making you feel so much better. I feel really good too. I have always had a "sort of" meditation practice but I didn't do it everyday when I woke up. I feel great too. Was smiling on the subway on the way to work yesterday, haha, till I realized I probably looked crazy so I stopped :)

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  3. I just lost my comment, ugh. Yes, some points can trigger some emotional response. Talk to your acu next time and also, tell him when he hits a point like that that it does hurt. Often, they will adjust the needle and all of a sudden it will be still zingy but better.

    I had one session where a well of emotion just started to bubble up. It was very odd, but it turns out that whenever my acu works on my "heart" I feel the same way.

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  4. That's very bizarre! I would definitely talk to Dr. Kim about it.

    And, yay, for meditation! :)

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  5. i hope you're feeling better from your appt now. i've been going to acupuncture for about 8 months. 2 months in, the acupuncturist did some different points than usual, and each needle felt like a stabbing pain going in. 10 minutes into laying face down, i started to get VERY agitated ... this culminated into me SCREAMING for the dr after another 5 minutes. 3 ppl bolted into the room wondering what the hell was going on, and i'm like "GET THESE NEEDLES OUT OF ME!!". i was mortified, when i got up to get dressed and had to walk through the waiting room after. 10 pairs of eyes were staring at me like i was LOCO!! i'm glad to say, it hasn't happened since :o) it musta just been an *off* day?

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  6. I did meditation with my second cycle and listen to tapes especially for IVF... you have a set of 4 according to where you are in your cycle. I am sure they have others for IUIs too. I loved them so much that I now bough the pregnancy pack too. Meditation rocks and it calms me down at the worst of times! I hope it helps you sweetie!! :))

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  7. I did acupuncture for a while and loved it, I just haven't found anyone in my new town to do it yet. It sucks that you had a bad experience with your emotions, but maybe it was emotions that you needed to let go of? Did you feel like you had a "cleansing" cry?

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