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I wanted to talk to you today about what does acupuncture feel like, because most people have a lot of anxiety about trying it and the reason for that is because it uses needles.
Pretty much everybody I meet loves to tell me how much they hate needles and here’s my response: yes, I understand we all hate needles, we all hate shots and having our blood drawn and that’s really our only experience with needles.
So my message for you today is an acupuncture needle is much more smaller than an hypodermic needle. So much so, you really hardly feel it.
Let me show you what one looks like. I’m holding it by the handle right now, I don’t know if you can even see the tip. They are so fine that they bend. So it takes 15 or 20 of these to equal the size of a shot. So I really don’t want you to be afraid that it’s going to hurt you.
Most people say that they didn’t even realized that I had already put it in. But it does have a feeling, we call it a Qi response. Qi spelled Qi is the Chinese word for energy and what acupuncture is doing is stimulating energy to send connections to the brain and accelerate healing. When the needle is inserted into the acupuncture point, it is actually dropping down and touching a river of energy that is running like a current through the body; that does have a feeling and this Qi response varies very much from person to person.
It can be anything from not feeling a thing, to feeling a quick flash of energy and then it’s gone; you might feel tingles, you might feel kind of a warm spreading feeling; all of those are quite normal and they should fade out in just a few seconds. The main thing that I would want my patient to understand is if they are laying there and they’re just continuing to feel uncomfortable, they’re having pain or discomfort… that means the needle is actually not placed correctly and needs to be moved.
So please speak out if you are feeling something like that. In general most people report becoming very dreamy. They start to become so relaxed that it’s hard to hold on to their thoughts and they just start to float off into a bubble of bliss. Most people express it was the best nap they ever had.
Its extremely relaxing: people love it, a lot of people use the word “addicted”. “I’m addicted, I can’t wait to come back”. It really makes you feel good and in fact sometimes we tell you might feel “accustomed”.
We see people who are leaving the clinic feeling a little “out of it” still, because they have been floating in a bubble of bliss. It feels great and it accomplishes so much in improving health.
I hope you’ll consider in giving it a try.
Candice Thomas, Licensed Acupuncturist
LightWorks Acupuncture, Tucson
(520) 318-5560
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