21 Needle Euphoria

So one of the happier discoveries we've made has been Zips' acupuncturist up in Albuquerque. She's been dealing with an extremely painful and rare neurological disorder since December of last year. The seizures and waves of pain have gone into remission and returned. At our wits end in early Feb. this year, I started calling around to acupuncture places here in town. No one could get us an appointment within six weeks, so I looked online for clinics that could schedule an appointment immediately and also took our insurance, and that brought us here.

I was able to schedule an appointment for the day after I called. The clinic is on the northwest side of town. It has 2 treatment rooms and 2 walls of the office are completely lined with row upon row of Chinese herbs that can be ground into teas, capsules, etc.

It was fascinating and shocking to see what was in the them. A lot of botanical things (blossoms, roots, seeds, etc.), but I can imagine there could be anything in those jars (things with feet?)!

On the walls in both treatment rooms are charts for different points for pins to go into. Again, I'm completely fascinated that a spot behind my ear or near my thumb could relate to elsewhere in my body.

I think we were really fortunate. Dr. Dumont is wonderful. He's patient, gentle, kind. He listens to symptoms, asks questions, asks more questions. The office staff is equally friendly and nice. Since February I think we've seen him 6 or 7 times, and her level of pain has really decreased (more so before our trip to Chicago-- we missed seeing him). I wish he weren't a 3 hour drive away (we'd be seeing him a lot more than once every week or two!), but after seeing being treated by a different acupuncturist here in town, he's totally worth the drive. His manner of treating her, of explaining what he's doing, of how she might react, and generally caring about her is really wonderful. It also helps that at times she's gotten an acupuncture "high" -- a sort of vibrating sense of euphoria and well-being.

Here's hoping for total remission again!