Have you ever done acupuncture? I’ve been trying to figure out what to do about this foot of mine that’s been bothering me for the last almost year. If you are new to the blog – I had knee surgery in August of 2011, and since then, I’ve had some kind of ache and pain somewhere in my lower body. Now that my knees are completely healed, I have developed what some doctors have called a Morton’s Neuroma, some doctors think it’s metatarsalgia … whatever it is, it hurts. I can’t wear heels, and I can’t walk very far without pain a lot of the time. You can imagine how limiting this can be. So, I decided to try just about anything to see if it would help. A month or so ago … I tried acupuncture. This is the story of that experience.I got a recommendation from my regular ol’ doctor – he’s recommended some pretty good doctors to me so far, so I figured this was a good recommendation. I finally got around to booking the appointment about a month after he gave me the number, and the process was really smooth.

Old Chinese medical chart on acupuncture meridians (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Up until this point, I’d been trying to book an appointment with acupuncturists who just hadn’t called back – 3 other ones. I might’ve taken that as a sign from God that I wasn’t to do acupuncture, but I kept going.

The acupuncturist called me back, and we set an appointment. I wondered then if my health insurance would cover ANY of the cost. I hoped it would at least be covered enough for me to try acupuncture out on a regular basis for a month or two to see if it helped.

Then, the acupuncturist sent me a questionnaire to ask about every faction of my life. I knew as soon as I wrote down that I enjoyed a diet sode on a regular basis that I would probably get in trouble with the acupuncturist for that fact.

I went in to meet the acupuncturist, and we went through my extensive medical questionnaire that also asked about my parents’ health background. Standard for a lot of doctors to ask you about your medical history, not so standard to actually sit down and talk about everything candidly. That alone might’ve been worth the money I paid – I am a talker.

Then we got down to the nitty gritty. The needles. It was really weird to have needles in my forehead. In my arms wasn’t so bad, but the needles in my forehead made me feel like a bug. Then she asked me if she could put needles in my feet, and I thought, “What the heck?! Might as well.” I’m pretty tough, and I can take some pain so I figured I might as well.

This is the weirdest sensation I think I’ve ever been through. Some of the needles that went in made a sensation totally SHOOT up my leg. And then some of the other needles it was no biggie. And then some of the needles I could actually feel twisting in my feet. Not the most pleasant feeling in the world. But I still haven’t figured out what the big deal is … it hurts worse to have a headache some days.

My feet were actually a little bruised a few days afterwards, and I didn’t have much pain like I normally would the next day. However, the pain has been with us again since then. To be fair, I haven’t been back because I haven’t figured out how to afford it yet. Acupuncture seems like something for people with more time and money on their hands. And the internet says that acupuncture may be a lot of your mind thinking that it’s helping. The jury is still out for me.

Anyway, I’ve now had acupuncture, and I might return again to see if it can further help with my feet, but it certainly wasn’t a magical cure all. Certainly not after just one treatment.

Have you ever tried acupuncture? Would you?