Part 3: 27 Needles

At my first appointment with my east doctor in Chicago, I filled out a ridiculously lengthy questionnaire regarding my cycles, my pooping, my health history, by body, my hair, my diet, and my infertility testing so far. Way too personal for comfort. She quickly shuffles me into a room and asks me lots of questions while reading my 10 pages of embarrassing health information.

Our conversation consists of lots of short questions ("You no ovulate?" "How old?" "How long trying?" "You have PCOS?" "How you sleep?" "You hot at night?" "You hands cold during day?") and lots of me saying "Excuse me?" and then dumbly answering. Then she says, "Let me see tongue." I stick out my tongue as far as it will go. She says, "Tongue red." I say, "Ok."

Then she takes 3 fingers and feels my pulse on my arm. I had read about that part and knew she was feeling for my "kidney pulse" or something. Then she looks at me like it's written on my forehead and says, "You have kidney yin deficiency. You too hot. I give you acupuncture and herbs" (but "herbs" sounded to me like "pulls." I had no idea what she was going to pull).

"Lay down." I jump up and laid on the table. I was probably looking at her and acting like she was Jesus by this point. I would have done anything she told me. She tried to explain more about "Qi" or "Chi" and how my kidney yin and yang need to be in balance. My "yin" is way outta whack, and she said she can fix it. I didn't ask too many questions.

I lay down and before I know it she's unbuttoning my pants and folding them down so my stomach is showing. I closed my eyes immediately, a little nervous. I hadn't read about this. She comes over to my head and starts putting needles on the top of my head, forehead, in between my eyes and in my ears. It felt like she was flicking me. She stopped and said, "Needles no bother you?" I said, "No, I think I'm ok." She said, "Good." She proceeded to flick needles into my arms, hands, belly, knees, calves, ankles and feet.

I counted 27 flicks.  

Then she pulls out these wires and I get nervous pervous. I can hear her pulling some sort of machine close to the table. My eyes are open now but I'm too scared to move or look anywhere but up a the ceiling for fear I'm going to see 27 needles sticking out of my body. She hooks two clips onto two of the needles sticking out of my freaking belly and says, "You feel pulse." I'm not sure if it was a question or declaration. I panicked a little and said in a probably very high voice, "Is this going to hurt?" She says, "No hurt."

She turns on the machine and I feel electric pulse waves on my stomach. I laid there not breathing. Omg I did not sign up for electric shock therapy. I thought this was supposed to be "natural." She said relax. I didn't say anything or move a muscle. I'm not sure if I had started breathing again. She turned out the light, walked out of the room and shut the door.

Then I just laid there and listened to soft Asian music. It was amazing. I fell into a little daydream trance. I never felt the needles and the electrodes became less and less noticeable.  

Thirty minutes later she comes back, removes the needles in about 6 seconds, and says, "You all done. You come back next week." I don't think this was a question, either. I hop off the table, button my pants, put on my shoes and walk out the door. She's sitting there with a bag of what I now realize she's been saying all along - "herbs."

Oh God, the herbs....