Acupuncture

What are everyones experiences with acupuncture? What benefits have you gotten from it? Can you herx from it?

Post Edited (Biking16) : 7/10/2021 9:20:23 AM (GMT-6)

I love acupuncture! I have seen several practitioners. Each one has an individual style, and of course there are many differences in training and schools of thought more broadly, so one type of acupuncture might work better for you than another. Acupuncture gave me significant improvements in headaches, appetite, muscle tension, anxiety, circulation, digestion, and menstrual issues. Definite, immediate improvements.

People can have a "healing response" afterward, where you basically feel hungover afterward for a while (an hour to a day), just like you might after a deep tissue massage or yoga session, but that is not a herx. Water helps, and this healing response is a good sign, meaning the blockages you had are now unblocked, and the effect will occur less and less over time. That said, many people just end up feeling relaxed, "zenned out," and amazing afterward!

I don't know if acupuncture can cause an actual herx (endotoxins from killed pathogens) except in the sense that it can improve immune function over time, allowing your system itself to kill off pathogens more effectively. maybe others can weigh in on whether acupuncture has direct antimicrobial capabilities.

If you have extremely reactive nerves, then it's possible that you might get some temporary nerve damage from acupuncture; I had acupuncture about 200 times and got (minor, temporary) nerve damage three times. It just made the spot hurt to the touch, like a bruise, for a while. Not a reason not to do it, just being honest.

@ saraeli, that makes sense about the herxes. I've felt like I'm herxing and I'm just a few sessions in, but saw relief the day after one of the appointments... did you get relief immediately after your first session?

I used a acupuncture weekly for nearly 6 months, then went to twice a month, then once a month, this was during a 2 year period while I was healing from my first set of infections.

Personally, I wouldn't have made it through any treatments without it, but my practitioner was a Master, so she knew all the ins and outs of the nerves she was trying to affect. She stopped migraines and severe nausea (as in I hadn't been able to eat for 2 days) on the spot. She also used moxibustion with acupuncture often, heating the needles gently. She was often amazed at how much heat I "took in" through some of the needles.

I actually was able to experience easing of my herxing with acupuncture, but again, I was using a Master Acupuncturist.

Some effects will be immediate and others cumulative; it depends which symptoms you are treating. And it really does matter who your practitioner is. Get recommendations and try multiple folks if necessary.

There were many months that the only time I had any appetite at all was for the roughly two hours following an acupuncture appointment. I had gastroparesis, meaning the nerve signals in my gut were sluggish or nonexistent sometimes, and I'm not sure I would have survived without those occasional meals that I actually wanted and digested! Anxiety and depression immediately abated, and I felt more resilient emotionally. Uterine pain (which I had regularly, not just cyclically) would resolve immediately. I would feel warmer afterward. Organ pain resolved immediately.

Pain and headaches were affected immediately, but the affected areas often felt very sore (different from how they felt beforehand) afterward for a while before I felt improvement. When I was battling migraines, acupuncture would give me bad headaches (again, a type of soreness, unlike migraine pain) for about a day afterward, but over time migraines got milder and then resolved.

I have had sessions with overzealous practitioners who stirred up a lot and left me feeling woozy and dizzy, but that's not typical, and any good practitioner will hear that feedback and next time either be less ambitious with needle placement or add some needles for grounding, stability, detox, etc. Usually they can adjust accordingly.

I've also had sessions that didn't do much, and I didn't see those practitioners again. I have experienced this modality as very powerful, so I would not waste time (and money!) on acupuncturists that don't make you feel anything.