Punctured

I tried acupuncture for the first time a few days ago. Not for any critical ailment, other than the usual shoulder and backaches that come along with reading all day for a living . . . just for general well-being and out of curiosity.

As a huge fan of massage, I'm familiar with the concept of pressure points and how various seemingly unconnected parts of the body (like your feet and belly) can have a deep impact on each other. But I didn't know that traditional Chinese medicine says you can feel the pulse of your liver, stomach, spleen, and both kidneys in your wrists—plus your heart, of course. Pretty cool. I also learned that acupuncture is intended to address a wider range of health issues than I imagined, like skin, digestion, and circulation problems.

Because I had no specific expectation of how it would feel or how it might affect different aspects of my health, it was easy to go into the session with an open mind. Amber, the practitioner who treated me, is a friendly and warm woman around my age. We'd met a few times through a mutual friend, and she seemed passionate but relaxed about her work. I've been meaning to give acupuncture a try for a while, since several friends swear by it, and I'm generally interested in alternative healing methods. Don't get me wrong, I love antibiotics and the painkiller aisle at Walgreens, but homeopathy and herbal remedies often serve me well instead.

It's hard to describe how it feels to have miniature needles stuck into strategic locations all over you for about 25 minutes. I expect it varies for everyone. In my case, it just felt neat. My body's reactions to it were palpable and really interesting to track.

For this first session, Amber gave me a balancing treatment, with needles in my right ear and both wrists, ankles, and calves. I couldn't feel the needles themselves—they're tiny and caused no pain—but I could feel my blood moving around in all kinds of brisk and unusual ways.

My muscles also responded by tensing and relaxing at different moments. My ears felt warm, and my feet got cold (Amber wisely pointed a heat lamp at them before the session). Toward the end, I fell asleep for a few minutes and had an intense dream. All I remember is that I was rushing toward something in my car, and I woke up with a start.

I didn't expect to feel like a whole new person afterward—any course of physical treatment takes time to show results—but I felt enough of something to decide that acupuncture is worth trying out. I'll let you know if the effects change over time.