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Monday, February 17, 2020

Acupuncture

There's a demon living between my knee and my heel/ankle, on my right leg, moving around and causing pain in a seeming random way.  With ice, ace bandages, and a knee brace, I've been able to keep walking and pretending everything is normal.  Underlying this all is the damage I did to my sciatic nerve during the earthquake Nov 2018.  The problems I'm having are along the path of the nerve, and the three toes on the right side of my right foot are still odd.  Sort of like after your foot's been asleep and is getting better, but isn't quite normal yet.  That's been pretty much how things are.

Last time I saw the physical therapist, he gave me new exercises to do, and when I asked about acupuncture, said that 70% of his patients who have done acupuncture report that it helps.





So I was going to try in San Francisco where there were acupuncturists on every corner it seems.  But we really weren't there long enough.  But here on Bainbridge there's an acupuncture person a very short walk from where we stay.  My hope is that it can clear the passage of the nerve to my toes.  And all the other problems are along the same route and affected by muscles along that path.

And while I have an aversion to needles used to give shots or draw blood, my head has no problem with the little acupuncture needles.  So I emailed and got a response that there was a cancellation at 4:30 today.  My granddaughter accompanied me.  

After taking some history of the issues, she had me get up on the table and put little needles in me on both sides from chest too foot and let me lie there and relax.   The goal she said, was to do general body work, not specific.  The hope was to alert the body to try to recalibrate itself.

We'll see.  It seems there's a slight improvement in my toes, but I don't know if I'm just imagining that or not.  After a few days I'll know more.  I'll go back for several more sessions before we return to Anchorage.


4 comments:

  1. ouch!

    Sorry to hear about your visiting 'demon'.

    Hoping the best with your treatment with (very thin, they hardly count, do they?) needles.

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  2. Thanks, I'm learning how to live with it while I'm trying to liberate it. The acupuncture needles can barely be felt if at all when going in, not very deep.

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  3. As someone who has endured 4 back operations and pinched sciatic nerves over the past 42 years, I can saypinched nerves are unfun. I have permanent damage in my right leg and foot and virtually no muscle control in the right foot. i wear a plastic brace on the foot and up near the knee to keep foot from drooping and causing me to trip. Left leg is failing as well.

    Good luck with your demons. Once they take up residence, they hate to leave.

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  4. Mike, that's a long time to be in pain. I keep shifting from 'this too shall pass' to 'I'll figure out how to live with this.' So far ice is my best friend.

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