No Pain, No Gain

I've been having this weird sensation in my left arm. It started as a knot underneath my left shoulder blade; a place it regularly shows up when I'm stressed. Hubs usually puts pressure on it once per day 'til it sees fit to leave; usually 4 days later. This knot, however, got worse every time Hubs touched it (which will turn out to be a good excuse for his absent back rubs, I'm sure). Soon, I couldn't even find where the knot was located because it was buried in the pain which radiated up and down my shoulder blade. I could only get relief when I'd put pressure on another totally unrelated location behind my shoulder and behind my elbow. The final straw came at the end of weeks of dealing with this when my fingers got tingly and numb.

So I made an acupuncture appointment and went to the first one last week. My appointment was 2 hours 45 minutes long. She took my entire physical and emotional history. She did diagnostic tests that consisted of waving a hot wand over my fingers and toes to measure the balance on my two sides. She took a pulse from each of my wrists and could tell there was a difference in the two sides of my body that indicated something wrong. In the end I was told that I have toxins in my body that need to be realeased. Once the toxins are released, she needs to clear a block that is not allowing my arm to heal naturally through energy transport through my body. All this, of course, with the use of needles.

I had needles running up and down my back that were inserted through a plastic sheath that punctures a mere 1/8 or less of an inch into my skin. Some I didn't even feel, others felt like I was getting stabbed. Where there was pain, there were toxins that were using the needle as a medium to exit my body. She used another series of needles on my wrist and then on my underarms; obviously a very tender part of my body.

The wrist needles didn't hurt a bit until she barely turned them and pulled them out. It felt as though she was pulling something out of my arm. And the same went for the underarm torture. I felt as though she'd stabbed my heart through my underarm and then she pulled it out with the needles. I'm obviously being dramatic because there wasn't even a needle mark left in its place. And like I said, they were in less than 1/8 of an inch. But if the pain was any measure of the amount of toxins in there, I think she's in for a flood of toxin release.

I have another appointment in 45 minutes to release the remaining toxins she couldn't remove with the first appointment. I hope this treatment is the last because I am feeling a bit anxious about it. But just as a follow-up, these past days were the first of many many days that I didn't have pain in my shoulder when I sneezed or coughed. I think that's a good sign.

I will report the follow-up tomorrow.