acupuncture
 

anyone else partake?

no pills do for me what acupuncture does. this is my glowing recommendation to give it a shot for anything that might ail you.

that's all.

it doesn't hurt?

once. it was quite soothing.

i do it once in a while with my psychiatrist for anxiety

seems to work

doesn't hurt. i have no problem with needles but some people might be squeamish

it can hurt.

i go once a week on average. we talk a bit about what's going on and how i feel; if im sleeping/eating/how my anxiety or depression is, etc. he reads my pulses and then depending on what's going on, he burns herbs on my skin in differnt places, then puts the needle in and pulls it out where he burned. sometimes i dont feel a thing, sometimes it hits a meridian in a way that when he takes it out, it feels like my muscles are being ripped out of me. no matter what, by the end i feel like melting and there's an outline of my body in sweat where i was laying.

oh, i've just got them stuck in my ears. that does sound possibly painful.

glad it helps you

i do bleed but he says they say that's a sign of luck or some such in eastern cultures. plus i sorta like blood so it doesn't bother me.

yeah it's pretty involved. he does it all over my body...today on both sides of my neck, legs, feet and 4 places on my stomach.

does it help your anxiety? i've never bled...the needles are so tiny and they only go in a fraction of an inch.

enrique gives me one a week for leg cramps. i tip him extra if hes wearing no shirt

That's cool. It did really seem to help the times I've done it. Usually it was an emergency session type thing for out of control anxiety. Might have been a placebo thing but I really don't think so.

With the ears they get stuck completely through them like your ears are getting pierced through the top part and through the cartilage.

Er, here found this:

http://drmaj.com/wp-content/uploads/...r-staple-2.jpg

At the Shen Men point.

you guys know i'm all about the western mental health stuff. no bullshit here

acupuncture definitely isn't bullshit :banging:

wow thats pretty cool. is the needle still really thin?

it's fairly thin but not like some of the ones I see in google image search. closer to an IV line thickness although not that big. i can check next time i am there; i know he has a few different kinds, too.

needles really freak me out. whenever i get an IV/try to give blood i get super nauseous. When i dislocated my knee this summer an orthopediest stuck a big ol' needle in my knee to try to drain some of the fluid (it didn't work) that also made me super nauseous. i think it is psychological.

i want to try this, or either cupping. I heard they both work really well.

my impression has been that cupping is best for withdrawing illnesses like a cold or the flu and acupuncture is more suited for specific physical pain relief (not saying that the both don't overlap at all)

no scientific evidence that it works. In fact, all the studies done to date show it to be no better than placebo.

hey if it's placebo that's fine with me

i like to think i know my states of consciousness pretty well and it did in fact help my anxiety. but anyone can fall into the placebo effect so who knows. i do know it seems to work for people more than shit like crystal healing

this is what I thought about cupping, too. a friend of mine swears it calms her nerves, and anxiety. I've been crazy stressed these past few weeks, and she wants me to go with her. we WILL SEE

I think that for some people the act of lying there and relaxing is really what's important. it's not easy to do for some people to relax that way, and the ritual of the whole thing may help in that regard.

for me, I can get that from a message. no woo needed.

for the record I do it sitting up throughout a normal talk therapy session, so like 45 minutes or so with them in my ears. now obviously the act of being in therapy itself can reduce anxiety (or raise it) so there is that to consider

regardless of no scientific evidence I would do it again and do think it helped me, for whatever reasons

I think acupuncture along with most holistic medicine is very much placebo driven BUT placebo's are kind of awesome and it if works for you then go for it!

yeah

placebo effect is part of any treatment, including pills that were demonstrated to be x% more effective than a placebo.

just shows the power of the human mind

placebo effect or not, it works for me.

my doc is also one of the best anyone could ask for- i consider him my GP and love going to see him. I ask him all sorts of questions about what he does and how it works, etc... and it always makes sense. he's like a therapist, gp, and holistic healer all in one...30+ years doing this.

here's his credentials:

UC Berkeley, BA Zoology

UC Irvine Medical School, MD

General Medical Officer in the US Pblic Health Service: Colorado River Indian Tribes Reservation, Parker, AZ

OBGYN Residency at Kaiser Hospital in Oakland, CA

Five Element Acupuncture training under the Master, Dr. J.R. Worsley,

Licentiate, Bachelor & Master Acupuncture

Home Birth Obstetrics, Tahoe City, CA

Certified Meditation teacher; Siddha Yoga Meditation

Trained in Functional Medicine

Certified Instructor in Calm Birth Childbirth Education

Certified as Ayruvedic Physician

i've had acupuncture a couple of times when i went to my physiotherapist.

once i got needles in my leg. it's been a while, so i don't remember clearly, but i believe he also applied some electrical wires to some of the needles. is that possible?
but that time it didn't help. there even was a little bit of blood when he removed the needles, and i don't think that's supposed to happen.

the other times was more recent, when i went there because my spine was out of place (just a little bit - causing shoulder aches and other trouble).
the first step of the procedure was always acupuncture. burning herbs was also involved. i believe he put them on top of the needles, and it would heat the needles up until they were very hot, but i'm not really sure, as i couldn't see what was going on on my back. it didn't feel hot.
then there would be some massaging. and then finally, when everything was a bit looser, he'd crack my back. (chiropractic?)
heh. i have no idea what was really going on.

i've had it many times. it's only about $1.75 here per session with national healthcare. they also do muscle shocking, cupping, and blood letting. and ginseng shots. it's all relaxing. i used to do it 4 times a week after work...and then i just ended up taking naps on the table while they did whatever. who knows what those ladies did to my back.

then i just started running again because i felt i was being too lazy.

there have been studies where people completely untrained in acupuncture administer the treatment and the results are the same as with an acupuncturist. ie. no better than placebo. which means that the vast majority of subjects have no benefit at all.

there are GPs and such who will suggest their patients use non scientific treatment. but that doesn't make it science, or effective. I would question any medical doctor who does. It would be like a physicist suggesting you get an astrological reading.

i think that with chiro and acupuncture there can be a small relaxation effect, both from the fact that you have to sit or lie there and go through a ritual, procedure, etc. But that's something that a lot of people get simply by getting a message (with or without happy ending). no need for voodoo.

personally, if people want to do these things with their own money, good for them. it only really bothers me when health insurance companies or the government pay for it.

good for you, champ.