Accupuncture Adventure

After hearing so many positive stories from friends and family about the wonders of accupuncture, I decided that the first chance I got, I would try it out. So went to Tanjong Pagar Plaza in Chinatown, a little mall-ette attached to an HDB complex. On the second floor, just above the bank, I met Dr. Theresa - a Chinese physician and accupuncturist. In a quick conversation during which she felt my pulse, she basically made some guesses about my body and my eating habits. She told me how often I would get hungry, the poor quality of my sleep, and how I was frequently thirsty. All of it true - just from feeling my pulse? It was hard to fathom, though of course, she eyeballed me quite a bit as well. The bottomline: I have plenty of heat and wind in my body - so the toxins including fat just hang out...like a lot of murk in still waters. Then she had me lie down on my tummy while she massaged me rather vigorously in the neck and in the back.

"Ow ow ow." I said.

"Does this hurt? Does this hurt?" she asked squeezing harder.

"Yes, it hurts!" I retorted my face down in a paper towel.

"Ah ah..." she said knowingly.

She then proceeded to skin me with cups and then placed them all over my back. Then she pierced me with needles at various points. Call me a masochist...I rather enjoyed the experience and the localised sites of pain. She then left me for a bit and I fell into the deepest nap I'd ever experienced. I only awoke when I realised she was giving me instructions about various herbs and tablets I should take. I didn't pay much attention. So much better to just think it's all magic and hocus-pocus...so much more pleasurable to have the entire process shrouded in mystery.

I yelped each time she unpopped the cups - it was a new and not disagreeable. She then had me turn on my back so she could needle me at certain points in my tummy. The sensations at each needle-prick were rather strange - like little balloons of fluid being burst. I asked her about it, but only got the answer, "Aah, ah." Like this was all the way it was supposed to be. Why even bother asking, I thought to myself.

At the end of it, she gives me various pills to drink and a bottle of a horrific brown concoction - I no longer bothered to ask what it was. And that was it. That night, when K came in for her nightly wee, I did not even hear her. Last night, I slept straight through like a nine month old baby - a powerful, heavy sleep. I see her again next week...