Today, I started my day with needles protruding from the furrow between my eyes. I figured that, since I’m on this health kick and my colon has been irrigated, I might as well start taking care of the rest of my body. So I made an appointment to see Dr. Charlotte Massey, the naturopathic doctor I work with at Clear Center. Charlotte grilled me with more in-depth questions than any doctor has ever asked me. Not in a Spanish Inquisition way, but in a very caring, nurturing, curious way. We discussed my health issues-my history of abnormal pap smears, my chronic allergies, and my insomnia, and Charlotte made recommendations to support my health with regard to all these issues. Like pre-loading with high dose Vitamin C and supplementing with quercetin during the few months before my allergies are at their worst in springtime. And taking lots of folic acid to help my body fight the human papillomavirus that causes abnormal pap smears. Good stuff, and I’m gonna try it.

But I have to admit that the main reason I scheduled the appointment with Charlotte is because, in addition to being a naturopath, Charlotte also treats patients with acupuncture, something I can’t help being curious about. Now you must all remember the first time you heard about acupuncture. I sure do. A kid at school told me that her mom went to the doctor, who stuck needles all over her body- even in her eyeballs (well, you know kids! You gotta take everything they say with a grain of salt.) From that moment on, I imagined acupuncture as some sort of ancient Chinese torture. Until I started reading more and more about its health benefits. Like how much it can help in treating chronic pain, infertility, and mood disorders. The neurons firing in my brain yelled, “No! No needles!” But I ignored them and asked to try it.

Charlotte graciously agreed, and before I knew it, I was lying face-up on a massage table, while Charlotte demonstrated the insertion of the fine, hair-like needle by putting one into her own hand. Then, very gently and with great sensitivity, she asked my permission to insert needles in my feet, ankles, legs, forehead, and scalp to help me with the allergy attacks that have plagued me, as well as the chronic insomnia that plagues me. I barely felt the needles- not the least bit of a stinging sensation, but a different sort of feeling altogether. I’m not even sure how to describe it. Let’s say it was less uncomfortable than plucking your eyebrows and more uncomfortable than a massage, but almost as relaxing, since the room was quiet and dark and Charlotte’s voice was gentle and soothing. She stayed with me for a while, to make sure the needles weren’t hurting and that I didn’t feel “pinned down,” which I didn’t. Asssured that I wasn’t going to wig out and go sprinting across the Clear Center waiting room with needles poking out of my face, Charlotte left me alone, so the needles could do their job, opening up the meridians so my chi (energy) could flow normally. I even felt a chi-like zinging up my legs from where the needles were. Maybe it was all psychosomatic, imagined by my spazzy brain, but I felt almost electric, in a good, moving, healthy sort of way.

After a while, Charlotte came back in to adjust the needles, to help them “tonify” my channels. Then, after a little more time, the needles came out painlessly, and my first foray into acupuncture was done!

It makes me think about all the channels in my life. Not just the kidney, the liver, and the spleen, but the Mommy channel, the Doctor channel, the Artist channel, the Teacher Channel, the Writer channel, all those chi-filled paths that make me who I am. I can tell when one of them gets blocked, when the Mommy chi just isn’t flowing right, or when the Writer chi hits a barricade. Makes me wonder if acupuncture could help restore flow to those other parts of my life. I’ll have to ask Charlotte.

But in the meantime, something wonderful has happened. For weeks, since we moved to this new, verdant, life-filled area, my allergies have been torturing me. I’ve been red-eyed and puffy, scratchy and watery, sneezy and runny. But it’s been 12 hours now since Charlotte inserted the needles into me, and I haven’t sneezed once. Not once! I just realized that I set down the Kleenex that normally lives permanently in my hand this time of year, and I haven’t wiped my nose at all. Even my eyes are brighter, bluer, and clearer. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I haven’t eaten dairy or wheat since I finished the cleanse, but I’ve been doing that for over three weeks now, and this is the first allergy relief I’ve had. Must be all that chi, flowing the way it’s supposed to flow, letting my energy surf its way around my body, balancing my yin and yang.

You could argue that it’s all the mind-body connection, that if I believe acupuncture is going to help my allergies, it will. And maybe you’d be right. I’m certainly a true believer in that connection, that we have a say in whether or not we feel better. But this is remarkable, the way I feel right now. At this moment, with my free-flowing sinus passages, I’m an acupuncture convert, and I’m going to be sending all of my patients to Charlotte.

Charlotte wants me to get another treatment, so I’m putting myself on her schedule. Right now, after years of seeing various allergists, taking four pharmaceuticals that don’t help at all, and finally giving up on it all, resigning myself to a life of dripping and runny and ahh-chooing, I’ll do anything she recommends. Next time she buries the hubs of little needles into my flesh, I won’t worry at all. I’m an old pro now, and I believe. But deep down, I’ll be thinking about all those other channels- the Mommy, Artist, Doctor, Writer, Teacher ones. And I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed that somehow, Charlotte will be opening up more than just my sinus passages. If I believe, will my body and mind become a free-flowing river, babbling and trickling and open? I hope so. But just in case, I’ll put my chi in Charlotte’s hands, and I’ll keep my fingers crossed. Can't wait to see how I sleep tonight.

Nighty night and lots of chi,

Lissa