As you probably know, I suffer from chronic pain.  My stomach does not push food through properly so eating and drinking causes pain in my stomach and my bowels are inflamed with colitis (suspected Crohns Disease) ulcerations. I have recently been getting migraines that cause sight disturbances for 3 days at a time and my heart is weakened (it beats too fast which has caused it to age prematurely and I’m on medication to slow it down but with limited success). My situation is deemed as ‘complex’ because so many things don’t work as they should. I have other medical problems but they are a bit too personal to be on social media (I’m sparing you the grim-ness of it all).

Anyways!

Rather than waste another year in pain and unable to do things that I love to do, I decided to try and raise some funds for private Pain Therapies (in exchange for bracelets & badges). The NHS has done as much as they can but they have virtually no pain management beyond drugs since they shut down the Holistic Therapy unit in Glasgow.

My problem has always been that I can afford one-off sessions but I could never financially maintain them.  Now I can.

I have tried massage which seems to work for a few hours but then wears off.

So last week (and I apologise for the lateness of this posting – it was due to poor health) I started acupuncture. Firstly, I should say that I am a cynical non-believer. So I didn’t go in expecting a miracle. The women performing it is fully qualified and had also trained in China. She was so kind and patient as we went through the car-crash of my medical notes.

Then we started. It was not painful. The needles are 0.2 of a millimeter. Tiny. It felt more like a bit of static than a pinch. So if you go for acupuncture, it should not hurt. It only lasted for just over 30 minutes.

I did not feel immediately different. My pain is usually more acute in the morning and evenings. Then a day later I managed to get up in the morning without the pain being as sharp. It’s hard to describe but I felt it was easier to move around. It did not take away the pain but it makes it easier to move around and dulled the sharp pain.  No one was more surprised than me. It also helped me think clearer. Anybody with chronic pain will tell you how hard it is to think clearly when you’re in pain.

I go back in a week (for 6 months) and its meant to have an accumulative effect.  I’m feeling hopeful.

I could not have done this without Your help. So thankyou. I will keep you updated on the blog. I plan on trying different pain therapies this year and I’ll let you know how it goes.