nod to the needles

This cold has really knocked me flat. I've been coughing and sneezing so frequently that my neck and shoulders were getting really sore.

I'm not supposed to take ibuprofen while I'm on the Lexapro, and I've come to see how feeble Tylenol is in comparison. It barely does anything for my headaches. Still, I was a good girl and opted for Tylenol Cold & Sinus. Big mistake. Did nothing, and so I didn't sleep for two days for all the hacking and sniffling.

Yesterday, I couldn't take it anymore, so I dragged myself to the grocery store to get the Advil version. Most stores keep it behind the pharmacy counter these days, and the first store I went to had it on back order, as did the second. The third had one box left. So I didn't take the Lexapro yesterday in favor of the Advil C&S. If I start panicking again, it's Tylenol's fault.

I managed to get an appointment with Karen-the-acupuncturist this morning. I got there at 10 and didn't leave until 11:45! She put two needles in my knees, two in my forearms, and one on the right side of my rib cage and left me to cook for 40 minutes. Immediately after she put the ones in my knees, my nose started to get unstuffy. After the full 40 minutes, I could breathe more easily through my nose, and I felt a lot less run down and feverish.

She also did that spooky thing where she asks me something out of the blue because she read it in my pulses. She asked if I had been mad or annoyed about anything last week. There were several things getting on my nerves, so I told her about them (she also serves as counselor, rather like hair stylists do). Amazing how she picks up on that stuff just in your pulses.

This is why I use Eastern medicine before Western. The average time for a visit with a primary care doctor is SEVEN MINUTES. They can only get cursory, symptomatic information before prescribing anything. If what they prescribe doesn't work, you go back for another seven minutes. This isn't their fault. It's how the system is set up. They have to do the best they can within that seven minutes. My doctor is good, she really knows her stuff, but how much more effective might she be if she could have more time with her patients?

When I visit my acupuncturist, I get a minimum of an hour of her time, so she gets a far more detailed picture of me and gives me a treatment right there. I get up on the treatment table, she reads my pulses, she marks points and puts needles in, reads my pulses again, adjusts the needles if she needs to, reads my pulses again, leaves me to relax and cook for 10 minutes or more, comes back and reads my pulses again, takes the needles out, and reads my pulses one more time. Real-time feedback in action.

Obviously, if I break a bone or have a heart attack or something like that, I'm sensible enough that I'd to go the ER and the doctor, but for pretty much everything else, Eastern medicine does a much better job. Karen says Western medicine can save your life, but Eastern medicine can save your health.

As far as cost goes, I have a flexible spending account through work, so what I pay out to her, I get back from my FSA. And the cost per appointment is still less than the full charge for seven minutes with the doctor (ie, if you were paying the full amount, rather than just the co-pay).

By the way, Karen says to avoid sugar and bread when you have a cold, and eat lots of proteins and greens and take vitamin C and drink a lot of fluids and keep warm and cover your head and neck when outside. None of which I'd been doing in the past two weeks. Just had an extra-large helping of broccoli with tofu on the side and huge mug of green tea.

Such a relief to start feeling like me again.