#acupuncture

But I couldn’t help but notice how easily they banished a headache just by putting pressure on my feet or made my nausea dry up by pressing around my shins. Their medicine felt like witchcraft. I sidled closer to their sorcery the longer we were together. The tipping point was about three months into dating when my spine went out.

I’ve had back problems since I was 11 and every few months my spine liked to jump out of alignment and completely debilitate me for a week or two. This has been significantly mitigated by doing core exercises and working out so it’s a less constant problem now, thank goodness. Core muscles are important y’all.

When my back struck this time I still hobbled over to their house for date night. They took one look at me and begged me to let them work on it. At that point, nothing could possibly have hurt worse than my own spine, so I submitted.

It was incredible. Within an hour from treatment the pain had dissipated to a mild annoyance. Two weeks of suffering, instantly mitigated. I couldn’t believe it. After that I got a little bolder, letting them treat other ailments and soliciting help before problems blew up which was even more beneficial.

I let them needle my face for anxiety once and was floored to realize that a needle point between the eyes felt like Calm Emotions had just been cast on me. A weighted blanket of serenity settled on my whole body. It’s my favorite acupuncture point now.

But despite this I’ve remained a fussy patient, nervous and flighty. I take a little coddling through treatments but I’ve expanded what I can tolerate a great deal. More needles, more sensitive areas, all have been slow milestones for me.

Today they treated me and a friend of ours in exchange for that friend working on their neck. My arms have both been acting up as my hand ailment has tightened it’s way up my arm rather than down, then spread to my other arm.

There’s something called “trigger point release” that I’ve never been brave enough to handle. But laid out on the table I insisted, “I want to feel better.” It’s indescribable what they did. Trigger points don’t… hurt exactly. It’s more like touching the raw nerve and feeling a jolt of energy along the muscles. It’s shocking and your brain doesn’t like it but it’s not pain.

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: ER (TV 1994) Rating: Not Rated Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Peter Benton & John Carter Characters: John Carter (ER TV 1994), Peter Benton Additional Tags: Mild Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Past Drug Addiction, Chronic Pain, Needles, Acupuncture, a bit of a season 8 fix it Series: Part 24 of Bad Things Happen Bingo Summary:

Benton lifts an eyebrow. “What is this?” He gestures at John’s splayed-out form on the exam table, shirt undone and pulled up almost to his shoulders. Needles in his back. John feels a brief flush of self-consciousness. He’s quite exposed.

Stanley answers for him. “I was helping Doctor Carter with his back pain,” the younger man explains, while John tries to gather himself.

“His back pain,” Benton repeats, eyes narrowed.

Oh, Christ, John thinks.

OR: Carter and Benton have a much-needed conversation about addiction and chronic pain. Set in Season 8.

wish we'd thought to try this years ago

we have a nerve cluster in our left side that a few years ago went all Dark Phoenix and causes pain to flare right across our front from solar plexus to knees, if we bend down or twist or when we're getting up out of bed etc

and for most of those years we've been getting partial help from steroid injections - we say partial because they work really well, but the shots are every six months and they wear off after three months - and now thanks to two successive governments fucking the nhs, they can only do the shots annually

we were thinking of paying to see a private pain consultant about nerve blocks, but a) it costs a lot just to see them, b) any surgical intervention would cost loads, and c) nerve block surgery has very unpredictable outcome

so a friend with bad neuropathic pain told us that acupuncture really helps them, and we've found a very affordable setup (they hire a hall for the day and put multiple benches in there, way cheaper than hiring individual rooms) and we had our first session today, really not expecting anything to happen yet

but after one session our pain is at least halved, and for rotation is way more than half eased and that's kind of amazing, and also freaking out our body and mind - because when you live with a specific pain for long enough, you're whole body curls around it like it's trying to make pearl out of grit, so when the pain fucks off, you're left trying to undo all this learned tension

And there are only certain types and extents of ill health where it is socially acceptable to seek treatment. Aches and pains are seen as normal. Burn out and fatigue is seen as normal, commendable even. A certain level of suffering seems to be expected. Confounding symptoms are ignored, or thrown under the overarching domain of Stress, which is normal. One is taught from a young age not to expect to be Well.

Work comic #2

Maybe that phlebotomist's true calling is acupuncture.