Alternative Medicine: Acupuncture

blessmycottonsocks said:
It's about time Ernie coughed up a few quid.
Don't think I've had anything since last September or so.
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Now there's a coincidence!
Woke up this morning to an email from NS&I:

ernie.jpg


Not quite the £400, but still very nice.
Good old Ernie!
 
We have some as part of hte way we did our pension stuff. We win better than the interest rate and then some :)
 
Well that's my appointment booked for 16:00 next Thursday, when I'll be having needles stuck in both knees.
Difference is that these are large, hollow needles used to inject a gel.
The clinician assured me that, apart from moderate soreness, I should be fine to drive home afterwards.
Will keep you posted.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
Well that's my appointment booked for 16:00 next Thursday, when I'll be having needles stuck in both knees.
Difference is that these are large, hollow needles used to inject a gel.
The clinician assured me that, apart from moderate soreness, I should be fine to drive home afterwards.
Will keep you posted.
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Sounds a bit alarming! Good luck.
 
My Thursday appointment was postponed until 15:30 today and I've just got back from the surgery.
The injections themselves are quite nasty - he pushed the kneecap to the inside and inserts a larger-than-normal hypodermic underneath. The sharp pain as it enters the knee wasn't so bad, but the subsequent feeling of pressure, as the gel starts to pump in and flow around the joint was intense and made me feel a bit nauseous. Thankfully it subsided after a couple of minutes. I've got some gentle flexing exercises to do tonight and tomorrow and must try not to overdo the standing and walking for 24 hours. After that, we shall see. He recommended that I complement this therapy with some further acupuncture sessions too.
 
I recently found out (from an acupuncturist who I stopped going to because she kept bloody talking throughout the treatment, mainly about herself!) that 'classical' acupuncture is the original type that has all the spiritual elements and 'traditional' acupuncture (approved by the CCP) has all the spiritual stuff removed.

Or maybe it's the other way around?
 
After suffering from prolonged and excruciating pain in the pad at the base of my thumb, for over six months twenty years ago, I had an acupuncturist stick needles in it. I was- I will be honest- sceptical.

From the moment she pulled the needles out the pain stopped. It never came back.

That pain had bled into my dreams and every night I was tormented by nightmares of my hand and arm being torn off in various horrible ways (the worst being sticking my arm out of a train window as it passed another train, but I was also shot in the hand like Officer Murphy in Robocop, had it ripped off by car doors, bitten off by wolves, you name it). The dreams stopped immediately.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
My Thursday appointment was postponed until 15:30 today and I've just got back from the surgery.
The injections themselves are quite nasty - he pushed the kneecap to the inside and inserts a larger-than-normal hypodermic underneath. The sharp pain as it enters the knee wasn't so bad, but the subsequent feeling of pressure, as the gel starts to pump in and flow around the joint was intense and made me feel a bit nauseous. Thankfully it subsided after a couple of minutes. I've got some gentle flexing exercises to do tonight and tomorrow and must try not to overdo the standing and walking for 24 hours. After that, we shall see. He recommended that I complement this therapy with some further acupuncture sessions too.
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I was diagnosed with arthritis in my knees decades ago - the fact they'd swollen up to the size of footballs (I exaggerate slightly) and were painful beyond belief were a couple of minor clues.

So I was sent to a rheumatologist to have them both drained, and he got out needles the size of which I've never seen before and proceeded to drain them. He said it might hurt a little. Flip me, he wasn't joking, though he was understating things. It was unimaginably painful - actually, given the diameter of the needle, it was entirely imaginable!!

I've actually been symptom free for a couple of decades, though having seen the pics of the inside of my knees, there's already bone damage there, which could come back to haunt me at some point.
 
cycleboy2 said:
I was diagnosed with arthritis in my knees decades ago - the fact they'd swollen up to the size of footballs (I exaggerate slightly) and were painful beyond belief were a couple of minor clues.

So I was sent to a rheumatologist to have them both drained, and he got out needles the size of which I've never seen before and proceeded to drain them. He said it might hurt a little. Flip me, he wasn't joking, though he was understating things. It was unimaginably painful - actually, given the diameter of the needle, it was entirely imaginable!!

I've actually been symptom free for a couple of decades, though having seen the pics of the inside of my knees, there's already bone damage there, which could come back to haunt me at some point.
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I'm surprised that you cyclists have any knees left at all to be honest.
 
Floyd said:
I'm surprised that you cyclists have any knees left at all to be honest.
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It was more than likely the football, running and triathlon (and a history of arthritis in the family) that were the issues, with cycling tending to be good exercise for the knees.

On the other hand, I have to do weight-bearing exercise because of the possibility of osteoporosis, which my dad suffered from. Honestly, you can't win...!
 
cycleboy2 said:
It was more than likely the football, running and triathlon (and a history of arthritis in the family) that were the issues, with cycling tending to be good exercise for the knees.

On the other hand, I have to do weight-bearing exercise because of the possibility of osteoporosis, which my dad suffered from. Honestly, you can't win...!
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I don't think MrsF does herself any favours.
She'll drink 20 litres of cider, 14 bottles of wine and a few beers and go for a run the next day, right as rain.
That can't be good for the body.
 
Mighty_Emperor said:
Not sure if this is the right place or not but.........



Emps
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I went to an acupuncturist to see if he could help me with phantom limb sensations in my foot. My leg was amputated above the knee years ago, and I have pins and needles sensations in the toes of my long gone leg.
He put needles into my remaining foot, which I thought was odd. I thought he would be blocking nerves in my back or something.
The therapy didn't work for me, but I did learn something that has helped me. I can massage the toes of my remaining foot to relieve the sensations in my phantom foot. I don't know why I never thought of that prior to seeing the acupuncturist.
As far as the validity of the treatment, my own personal belief is that our culture has more to do with our health and the efficacy of treatments than we realize. Many Asian people see acupuncture as a perfectly valid and reasonable treatment, while some Westerners, like me, are more skeptical. Does that affect the outcome? I think it does. And I don't mean to imply that it's simply the placebo effect. I just think a person's state of mind and cultural identity may actually affect the outcome of a specific treatment such as acupuncture.
So that's my two cents, for what it's worth.
 
FeldwebbelWebbelfeld said:
I went to an acupuncturist to see if he could help me with phantom limb sensations in my foot. My leg was amputated above the knee years ago, and I have pins and needles sensations in the toes of my long gone leg.
He put needles into my remaining foot, which I thought was odd. I thought he would be blocking nerves in my back or something.
The therapy didn't work for me, but I did learn something that has helped me. I can massage the toes of my remaining foot to relieve the sensations in my phantom foot. I don't know why I never thought of that prior to seeing the acupuncturist.
As far as the validity of the treatment, my own personal belief is that our culture has more to do with our health and the efficacy of treatments than we realize. Many Asian people see acupuncture as a perfectly valid and reasonable treatment, while some Westerners, like me, are more skeptical. Does that affect the outcome? I think it does. And I don't mean to imply that it's simply the placebo effect. I just think a person's state of mind and cultural identity may actually affect the outcome of a specific treatment such as acupuncture.
So that's my two cents, for what it's worth.
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Having already benefited by traditional Chinese medicine I had to pluck up my courage and try acupuncture on my painful ankle. I can only say that it worked for me, partly by increasing circulation to that foot. My doctor stopped when she said the blood vessels were getting too large which could be dangerous. She was trained in both traditional and modern medicine (had even done heart ops). She said that if she had a traumatic injury (which could include your amputation of course) she would go Western; if a systemic problem, she would use traditional.
 
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