As an acupuncturist, I am frequently asked questions about what acupuncture can treat, how it works, and if the acupuncture needles hurt. Occasionally someone will ask me if I have any really amazing acupuncture stories. My gut response is to tell them that I have dozens of amazing stories about the effectiveness of acupuncture to heal. But I realize that what they’re asking is if I have any Wow stories about acupuncture. I have a few.
My most amazing story occured many years ago while I was still in school studying acupuncture. As part of my masters program, I was required to spend several hundred hours in the school’s teaching clinic treating patients.
One afternoon, I treated a woman who came to the clinic for chronic headaches. I don’t remember her name, but I’ll call her Mary. Mary was in her sixties, and had been battling headaches for years. She had tried a number of treatments, and had even had some kind of a surgical procedure in an attempt to alleviate her pain. The surgery didn’t help, and in fact left her with neuromuscular damage in her foot. She was seeking acupuncture as a last resort.
I did a thorough intake interview with Mary, and during the course of our conversation, I noticed that Mary’s right foot was continually moving. Her toes and the front of her foot moved like she was pressing and releasing the gas pedal of a car–about 30 or 40 times a minute! Mary explained that this movement in her foot was nerve damage and the direct result of her unsuccessful surgery. Mary told me that her foot never stopped moving, and it was most noticeable and annoying in the summer when she wore sandals.
I developed a point prescription and began to treat Mary with acupuncture. She was primarily concerned with the headaches, because she believed that there was nothing that could be done with her foot. I began by placing needles in or near the area of her headaches, as well as some in her hands and lower legs. I had also chosen to use an acupuncture point on the top of each of Mary’s feet. I inserted the needle into her left foot, but her right foot was a little tricky. It felt a little like coming in while playing jump rope–I had to time my insertion with the movement of her foot.
I inserted the needle and her foot stopped moving.
Mary and I looked at each other. I said “Huh!” and Mary shrugged her shoulders. Her foot did not move again during the course of the treatment. She walked out of the clinic that day with her right foot still; something it hadn’t been for years. Sadly, because I was treating Mary in a teaching clinic, I never saw her again. I don’t know if her foot remained still or if her headaches were ever resolved.
However, whenever I struggle with a patient who isn’t responding to treatment as well as I would like, and I begin to question the effectiveness of acupuncture, I think about Mary’s foot.
