Pins and Needles!

Today I went in to be a lab rat...kinda. My friend Katie works at a school that is right across the street. They teach Chinese Medicine stuff there. I was to be an acupuncture patient. I didn't have anything to do, and it was free so I figured what the heck.

So, I was basically the best acupuncture patient in the world. I had the main dude and a lady in a labcoat there...then 6 ladies with nametag stickers (three had 'J' names, three did not). It was a "Students shadowing the teacher" situation.

I mostly talked about my knee problems (less than Todd talks about his) and how I can't sleep well at night. They asked a bunch of questions. Then I got up on the table and they wanted to take my pulse. Not for numbers...but to feel it. Pulse on the right side relates to something like the lungs and stomach, pulse on the left side relates to liver and heart. Details are vague. Apparently there are 28 different pulse types, but the variations in between are infinite. Everyone took turns taking my pulse. After the first rotation of people I said "you guys gotta try this! This pulse is awesome!"

Then they wanted to look at my tongue. This is where I cracked. Lying down, sticking out your tongue, and then having 8 people lean in all at once to look at it is a funny experience.

They then asked me to take off my shirt and left. When they came back, the main guy swabbed some key points: the "in" side of both ankles, near each big toe, on the shin muscle near the knee, two spots in a line between my belly button and sternum, each wrist. He then said "this may feel a little tooth achy...like a dull pain or heavy. One. Two. Three." As he stuck me in the ankle. I didn't feel a thing. The other ankle...nothing. Right big toe, barely anything at all. Left big toe, hmmm, that feels odd...I got the tingly-heavy feeling. "Good. That's what we like." Right shin muscle, "This one might feel a little tooth achy too." BAM! Yes...yes it did. It felt like my shin muscle was cramping up. I could feel it in my toes. Wrist, fine. Wrist, fine. Stomach, stomach. Fine, fine. My stomach off to the right side where no needle was felt odd, and there was no needle there. I told him. "See (to the class)? This was one of the areas we were going to do, but didn't, and that is where the feeling ended up manifesting!"

I lay there for awhile. He comes back to check up. "We'd like to make you an herbal concoction to help with your sleep and digestion problems, is that ok?" Sure. I'm expecting him to come in with a cup of tea for me to drink. He leaves, then comes back and takes the needles out.

"We just did a general session today. We didn't want to focus on the knee since it was your first time in. Chinese medicine is actually really great for dealing with knee problems. It's a simple joint. Thanks for coming in. You can wait up from and we'll get you your herbs."

I wait up front for my cup of tea. As I'm waiting, the guy goes to the office and asks for something. He gets a jar of some herb that apparently needs to be kept in the office away from the other herbs. My cup of tea ends up being 3 bags of herbs...enough for 3 cups a day for 6 days. I feel like an Asian version of Harry Potter.