Went to the acupuncturist yesterday for a bunch of stuff: rotator cuff, sinus headache, etc. I think this was the first time I ever had needles in my knees, and about an hour later, my left leg began to hurt -as if all the muscles and ligaments in my leg were pulling really tight, and pins and needles in my foot. It got so bad, I was actually limping.
Since I just did not want to go to the emergency room AGAIN, I went to sleep, hoping I would wake up and whatever it was would resolve itself. It did not. I called my doctor, she said the needles probably irritated a nerve, “but just to be on the safe side, I want you to go to the ER and get an ultrasound of your leg.”
I have since read a lot of stuff about nerve pain after acupuncture (quite a surprise to me, since I’ve never even heard of it before) and found that yes, it does happen.
But I guess I have to go to the ER anyway. This is not how I planned to spend my Saturday. Happy fucking Mercury retrograde!
Susie, hope you’re feeling better.
When my (then) 6 year old 80 lb pit/Irish water terrier mix tore his right rear acl and couldn’t even put weight on that leg i took him to the vet. Not having much money, being but a lowly adjunct, my vet recommended acupuncture and two pills: a natural herb that promoted healing in general and a small black chinese herbal pill that was supposed to help joints and inflamation.
The problem, she explained was that the dog might not like the treatment because it was a different and somewhat negative or disconcerting experience for the dog and that i might not like it because the dog will look worse the day after each treatment. i couldn’t an expensive surgery for the dog so i said let’s try it. It took about a month and it worked like she said, but he got noticeably better each week. The first few weeks we did two treatments a week then backed it down to one.
Swim therapy from there had him back to near 100% by six months and he’s fine now – in fact he still swims once a week ’cause he loves it so much he actually smiles at me with laughter in his eyes after fetching some toy back to me over and over again (with frequent breaks so he doesn’t collapse) for about 30 minutes.
The vet said she has no idea why it works (she knows the Chinese nerve chart, what to do and all, but had no actual explanation) but that it does work.
i hope you recover quickly and that the pain subsides exponentially each hour.
song for you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRrRMp9FUx4
A friend of mine has sinus issues atleast since 15 years. She even had an operation when she lived in Asia. She was OK for few years but then started getting sinus problems. Something struck her and she did an allergy test, found she is allergic to gluten. Now, if she avoids Gluten she is OK – no sinus issues. Occasionally she craves for some food which has gluten and when she has it, she is in trouble. There might be a nutritional approach to tackling some conditions.
Why would you pay to have someone stick needles in you, which have been clinically shown to have no benefit beyond placebo but which still carries risk?
You made a low-risk-no-reward bet and now you’re clogging up the ER? This isn’t mercury’s fault…