I have suffered from Fibromyalgia for atleast nine years. Over the past five months I have tried a number of medications, including Lyrica and Narcotics. I have also included a number vitamins in my diet and take a weekly vitamin b12 injection.
For the first time ever, I tried Acupuncture. I have never been one to do all natural remedies, but I swear by this. Here is an essay I wrote on how it helped me. I have my second treatment tomorrow. Be open minded.
I am a person whose mind is always actively going round and round in crazy spinning circles. Many times, my active mind will take a nose dive and go off on a tangent or two (or even three). I have spent many nights lying awake in bed just thinking… and thinking… and thinking. It could be about a recipe I want to try, an issue at work, a bill that needs to paid, or about a hole in one of my kids’ jeans that needs to be patched. I swear some nights; I wake up at least three or four times for no particular reason. Sometimes I will groggily make my way to the toilet and pee, then wash my hands and stumble back to my side of the bed, all while my husband is snoring heavily next to me. It frustrates me because I feel like I should be getting up for a reason. At the rate I get up a night, I might as well be getting up to tend a newborn baby; but there is no baby.
I have taken over the counter sleep aids and have even been prescribed sleep medications. One particular sleep medication is forgiving and I can double the dose or even triple it. I will sleep better, but never reach the deepest point of sleep that one can take. I dare say the deepest sleep I have had in years has been induced by anesthesia when I have been under the knife for a surgery or medical procedure.
Sure, I can crank the tunes and clean to calm my nerves, or take a hot bubble bath and read an entire magazine. I can even zone out and watch some random home decorating program or even some trashy reality show on the television screen; but I can never fully relax or clear my mind completely devoid of any thoughts or worries.
This past Monday, for the first time that I can ever recall, I reached a point of Zen; meaning the point where “one’s intellectual brain and internal dialogue are silent.” I was in a naturopathic doctor’s office lying on a massage-like table. The type of table where you lay on your stomach and there is a cut out for your face. I was there receiving my first acupuncture treatment. I had at least a dozen tiny needles placed in various parts of my body. As I lay in the dark and sterile clinical environment; under a heat lamp in my leggings and camisole all-askew, I peered through the hole of the table at the metal legs. I thought about nothing, zip and zilch. It was as if I was living in the moment. I have never ever fully understood the concept of clearing my mind because I have never done it. But by golly, I did on Monday afternoon. It was wonderful; it was a true epiphany.