The waiting area in Kayla’s (name changed) practice was so peaceful that I felt better just sitting there. I had come to receive acupuncture treatments and didn’t quite know what to expect. While I sat and waited for Kayla to lead me back to a treatment room, I looked around. There were flowers on an end table next to a blue wooden bench. On the wall, there was a huge image of water and mountains. I stared into the quiet colors, already feeling a sense of calm.
When I met Kayla for the first time, I could tell right away that she was a warm and caring person. She was the kind of person who says, “It’s nice to see you,” and who really means it.
During my first visit, she asked if I had ever received acupuncture treatments before. I had not. Since this was my first time, she suggested we talk while she inserted the needles to distract me from the sensation. It turned out that the sensation was not bad, and the needles were thin. There was a quick release from her hands and a needle went in, and then another and another.
When she was finished, she put a heat lamp over my feet, placed a small device in my hand so that I could contact her if necessary, and pressed play on a CD player to invite Enya into the room. I was lying on my back with a pillow beneath my head and needles sprouting from various parts of my body. Kayla said I might cry. She said people have different responses to the process taking place once the needles are in.
“Enjoy your rest,” she said before leaving the dimly lit room.
Left on my own, the first thing I noticed was the energy in my arms and legs. It was coursing through my limbs as if it had been stuck or scattered for a very long time and was now getting back into a steady flow. It felt like water was rushing through me. There was an enormous sense of release and calm.
During the second treatment, I wondered if this is what it feels like to be reborn. I saw turquoise water that day. I was far away in a tropical location, floating on water. I was lost in a fantasy, lost somewhere in a feeling. I think it was the most relaxed I have ever felt.
Each time I went home after acupuncture, I had a different experience. Usually, I felt light during and after treatment, but one time I felt like a ton of bricks. Walking home was like slogging through the thickest mud. There was exhaustion in every muscle and bone. When I got home, I sat down in a chair and fell asleep.
Another time I was barely through the door at home when a wave of sadness rose up and over my head and I was crying. Yet another time, I had some of the most vivid, intense, heartbreaking dreams of my life after treatment one day.
I told Kayla about the various experiences I was having after each treatment, and she said it sounded as though something was unraveling. I agreed. So much rose to the surface and was released during my treatments that one day I was alert and curious instead of floating on air or water as usual. When Kayla left the room, I lifted my head slightly to see where she had placed the needles on my body. I had questions for her: Why did she look at my tongue each session? What did she learn when she felt my pulse?
After my “rest,” she would come back into the room and ask how I was feeling. I usually felt great. Sometimes I was so relaxed I could barely move.
“I’m on a cloud,” I said one time.
“Float on out,” she responded.
One day I heard her speaking with an older man in the waiting area who felt much better himself after his own treatment. He said to Kayla, “What happened?”
“Acupuncture magic,” she said.
Yes. Acupuncture magic.
A round of acupuncture treatments may not be able to permanently fix a person into a state of good health, but as Kayla explained, it can show people what is possible if they address the underlying causes of their health conditions and challenges. Personally, after many failed attempts to get relief from a chronic health condition, acupuncture was the only treatment that made a noticeable difference.
I was fortunate to be able to give acupuncture a try at one point in my life, but I had to discontinue treatment because of out-of-pocket expenses, which were high. Even though acupuncture helps many people from what I have read and heard, health insurance plans tend to cover treatment of only a limited number of conditions, if they cover acupuncture treatments at all.
In my own case, while receiving treatment I saw changes in my condition that I had never seen before. In a moment of doubt one day I said to Kayla, “Maybe it’s all in my head.” To her, the most important thing was that I was feeling better and not where, exactly, this feeling came from.
“If you are feeling better,” she said, “then hallelujah.”
Christine Hucko is a writer.
