Fine Balance Acupuncture would like to extend a very warm welcome to our new Acupuncturist- Alicia Nolan, L.Ac. !! Alicia’s bio will be posted soon so you can get to know her better. Starting in March, we will have evening hours on Fridays.
I think one of the most wonderful things about acupuncture is that it takes each person on his or her own journey through healing and wellness. Some people observe multiple changes that occur in their bodies while others may observe just subtle changes like improvement in pain. Each of our experiences is so unique and special. Alicia has been kind enough to share hers…..
- I had my first acupuncture treatment when I was 20 years old. I worked at a coffee shop and became friendly with one of the customers that was studying there everyday. I found out he was a massage therapist and going to school for acupuncture. I was instantly intrigued and had a desire to learn how to help people through alternative medicine. He gave me a gift card to see him at the student clinic at the school and what happened was a subtle beginning of my healing journey.I remember a few things about the first appointment. The thing that sticks out in my mind with the very first point. It was LI4, which I know now is a very powerful point. It is the command point of the face and sense organs so it is good for headaches, sinus issues, pain in general. It is a powerful “clearer” of pathogenic factors or blockages in the energy pathway. (It’s that one between the index finger and the thumb. People tend to be sensitive to it.) I felt a sensation pulse in the area and travel up my arm and out the top of my head. Strange. Afterwards I felt good and calm…. unsure of anything really happening. Over the next week I noticed that I was waking up feeling rested (normally I felt tired no matter how much slept.) I noticed that I didn’t crave sugar. Also at the time I was a smoker and lost my desire to smoke (I ended up need more treatments for this but I digress). I remember telling my mom “I haven’t smoked in a week.” I didn’t connect the two but she was sure it was the acupuncture and suddenly the two dots were connected.Now for most of my life I have suffered from anxiety, I didn’t know that’s what it was called until later, but I lived with a constant feeling of fear and doom inside of my body. I had experienced what a couple of counselors called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
I would just like to share my own theory and opinions about this. Due to circumstances I was basically living in this constant state of “fight or flight.” Here are somethings happening inside of the body when this system called the sympathetic nervous system is active. You’re heart and lungs accelerate, your digestion stops so blood can go to vital survival areas, the adrenal glands pump out stress hormones that are not meant to be in the system constantly. This is what happens under stress, under normal circumstances a body can return to normal when the perceived threat or stress is gone. I believe my body had no “normal” to return to, and therefore needed to learn in the first place what that was; to ever be able to return to it. This was an important concept for me to understand.
Acupuncture gave my body the ability to experience that state. I remember during a treatment this intuitive thought floated across my mind, “This is what I am supposed to feel like.” It was so clear to me. I had this weird sensation throughout the few days after a treatment that something was missing. I’d be driving and I had a lack of tightness in my lungs and breathing. I had to literally think about what was going on and why I felt different.
Acupuncture helped my body to operate in my rest and digest system. Now a lot of people ask, “How many treatments do I need?” Here is what I did to get a real change out of my body. I had weekly treatments for about two to three months and after that the treatments started to taper off on there own. I remember every week needing the treatment, but after awhile I got this sort of “hmmm I think I’m okay” sorta feeling.
I would like to mention to that I am very comfortable with using outside help as well, as I have come to believe in studying acupuncture it is not a cure-all. (I literally used to think it was before school.) It is a type of therapy that works really well for a lot of things, just like any other type of therapy. No matter what, it can benefit the mind and the spirit, and that is why I love it so much.