Stickin' Up for Me

It is very difficult finding new medical people I can trust. It is especially hard finding new "alternative" medical support. It is important to find someone who will allow me to feel safe and nurtured, while trusting their professionalism in order to be truly vulnerable, willing and able to receive the benefits of said treatment. I am mainly referring to acupuncture and chiropractic treatments.

I was introduced to both modalities by my physical therapist turned therapeutic massage therapist many years ago. I fought her gentle prods towards opening up to these treatments "tooth and nail". They were weird. They could hurt me. They were foreign. They had a bad "rep". They weren't covered by medical insurance. They were expensive. I was afraid. I talked with her over and over again about various styles of treatment. In chiropractic, it was "the crackers" versus "the healers".

I met my first chiropractor on a "singles" web site and had a couple of dates with him. After getting lots of information about chiropractic from him, I became his patient for about a year, and we stopped dating. His style of cracking me was a little off-putting at the time. I particularly didn't like when he crossed my arms over my chest while I laid flat, and he pounced on me with his full body weight to crack a difficult area between "my wings" in my middle back. I have since learned from other practicioners that this style has different forms: standing up or beginning in a sitting position and having him lean me back slowly to a lying position before applying pressure. The treatment works best if my muscles are not tight. At that time, they were extremely tight. I was not receiving regular massage therapy to help loosen me up and I was not stretching. Over time I discovered that the majority of my physical pain and headaches was/is due to tight muscles.

Since that first doctor, I have received treatment from at least a half-dozen more. Only one was female. I realized I prefer cracking with deep tissue massage or Active Release Techniques (ART) to "the activator" solely. My current new chiropractic doctor uses the former and the activator. He knows about ART, but I don't think he practices it. My former chiropractor did regularly perform ART on me, and I found this in addition to regular cracking (vertibral manipulation) works best for me. Now that we are living full-time in Rhode Island, travelling an hour and a half for an hour's treatment or fifteen minutes for chiropractic, just does not make sense anymore, especially with gas prices as high as they are. I like my new chiropractor and he seems to be doing a good job stabilizing my crackly, weak-feeling knees. My headaches are gone and my sinuses feel better. Chiropractic is now covered by insurance, and I only have a small co-pay.

It took me much longer to open to acupuncture. My last acupuncturist became my good friend. She has treated me for several years and became an emotional/spiritual counsellor as well. She has such a healing, nurturing, calming nature that I feel better just walking in her treatment room. I miss her dearly, even though she's a friend on Facebook, so finding a replacement for her will be much harder. I found a man with a practice I drive by a lot. My intuition kept his sign in my mind, and after calling around to practitioners from the Blue Cross web site with only one call-back (who was a woman who moved too far away for me), I found my car turning into his driveway last week on a whim. I got an appointment the next day and the treatment was very different. I have to pay $50 per treatment after the $75 initial treatment, but I will be filing forms to try and get some reimbursement from insurance. My ultimate goal is to find treatments that are mostly covered by insurance. Larry and I already pay over $800 per month for health insurance. I can no longer afford to pay huge amounts above this for my healthcare.

First of all, I am not used to being treated by a male for acupuncture. My whole orientation to it has been female. His style is more brusque, but he is very funny. We are of similar age, and talked about being from the same generation a lot. Without telling me ahead of time, after putting in the needles, he added a low-level laser block that he taped to the top of my left foot. I have a joint that has been bothering me for a year now, and nothing so far has helped the pain. It is difficult to walk with foot pain. It is best if one does not move after needles have been inserted, but I needed to see what was on my foot. Not only did he tape the block to my foot, assuring me that with two to three treatments, my foot would be so much better, he added electro-stimulation to one of the needles in my shoulder.

I looked to see what was causing my shoulder to jerk up and down more violently than I cared for. It was more like a strong muscle jerking motion, that I found disconcerting. It was an electrical clamp on the needle. I never saw what it was connected to, but I didn't like it very much. When I asked him what he was doing, he didn't give me information. It felt like he was pulling a male/female power trip: "You don't need to know. I know what's best for you." I don't deal with this behavior well anymore. I also picked up on what appeared to be a little arrogance when he said, "I am published. You can look me up on the web later for my work on "Naeser's laser" to relieve carpal tunnel pain." I thought he was making a joke with the "Naeser's laser" thing, but I did: http://www.gancao.net/acupuncture/laser/carpal-tunnel-syndrome-243. I need to find out more about the electro-stimulation he did to me before I allow it again. I have to admit, though, that both my shoulder and my foot feel much better.

I am seeing him again tomorrow. I will have a discussion with him about his non-communicative style. If I don't get a satisfactory reaction from him, i.e., he acknowledges it and gives me more information when I ask for it; thereby showing me more respect, I will just leave and look for another practicioner. I asked my old acupuncturist friend if she thought this behavior was a male/female power-trip thing or just a style difference, and she thinks it's the latter. I think the jury is still out on this one, but I'm opening to exploring it further. I have learned over time that acupuncture works for me. It removes pain and anxiety. It helps me sleep better and sweat less during the night. Often times, I am reminded of this fact when I stop going and the symptoms I forgot I had return. Acupuncture and herbs is how I successfully got through menopause without hormones.

Combining Eastern and Western medicine alternatives are key to my continued good health. Of this I am certain. I just have to add regular massage therapy and get it all mostly covered by insurance. The latter will require more research. These alternative medical options are focused on my body healing itself. I like the whole idea of that. I hate taking medication. I don't like the side effects, or the long-term implications of powerful chemicals' affects on my body. If I have to take them, I will. I'm taking Simvastatin for my high cholesterol now, after fighting the idea of it. It's no big deal. I still think of the long-term ramifications of the drug on my liver, for example, but for now I take it and shut up about it.

At least I am finding my health support system locally now, and I feel really good about that.