Pins and Needles

Acupuncture-that ancient chinese art of alleviating the body's ills by pricking pins at specific points on the body!
A friend of mine suggested acupuncture for my seasonal allergies and even food ones and I thought,well,I'll give it a try.I have a high pain tolerance and decided I could bear to be pierced in fifteen different places at the same time if that would keep me from the horror that is my seasonal allergies-the teary swollen eyes,the runny nose,the manic sneezing,the blurry vision,the sensitivity to light,the chapped nose and cheeks,the sinus infection that would invariably follow and such.And all this for a good 4 months atleast.
I have gone through that familiar path of starting off with Benedryl and moving up the medical ladder to Zyrtec and Flonase and Nasalcort,all the while using Visine for the eyes and saline solution for the nose.I've also tried the natural way-stinging nettles,bees wax,pollen-even going so far as to combine the two therapies! I dread the spring season because  I can never predict how bad the season is going to be and how far my intervention would need to go.So,living in Oregon has a minor advantage-the rain seems to hold things at bay for a while and Oregon is no stranger to rain!! The vernal equinox just passed us by,but we had a storm system slam us with so much rain that it was more like winter solstice!
Anyway,off I went to the lady offering the service.She uses kinesiology to figure out your ailments.I did look up kinesiology later and it does make sense,but watching her do it is like watching a magician do tricks.
She asks you to raise your left land out to the side and make a fist.She uses a couple of her fingers to try to push your hand down,while asking you to resist-which you obviously can, duh! But then she asks you to hold certain kinds of food,or even pollen or any such thing that you suspect you are allergic to and tries the same thing again -and if you are allergic to whatever it is that you are holding, bam! Your hand falls down even if she pushes on your hand ever so slowly!I found out I was allergic to gluten,eggs,milk and of course pollen and dust and mold and such.
One assumes that with food allergies you will have a runny tummy or constipation or gassiness or bloating-obvious, noticeable effects-but she says the effect can be so subtle you won't even relate it to what you eat-like joint pain,hair loss,dry skin,even infections in the nether regions!And the gut is considered another brain because all your nutrition needs to get in through the small intestine and it can become eroded by all the allergens you consume to the degree that your body does not absorb as much nutrients as it should and bingo-you feel weak,you are prone to illness,small kids have developmental issues......
Anyway,my whole family has joined the band wagon now and we go there en masse and get ourselves treated and hope we are free of whatever-gluten,milk(family allergens!!),eggs.....
I did the treatment for pollen and grass and hay and such and can really see the difference.We spent Easer sunday at a friend's house(mostly in the backyard) and I did not have an issue at all.Had it been last year,I would have sneezed my way to oblivion!!
Unfortunately I did not treat my dust and mold allergy yet,so I am absolutely fine outside,which I never was before,but miserable inside the house because of the dust and mold -I do not live in a pig sty,but nor do I live in a sterile environment-so 24 hours of non-exposure to the allergen is not doable if I have myself treated and came back home,so I am thinking I need to book a hotel room,go get the treatment and drive straight to the hotel and stay the night.Since my kids are afflicted too,we will make it a family outing-maybe the coast?!
As for the needle part,it was not much of a big deal.Frankly it does not hurt much at all.When she taps it in,you feel a little prick but then you are not even aware of the fact that you look like a porcupine caught in the process of shedding its needles!!And you need to stay like that for about 20 minutes and if addressing a food allergy,she wants you to contemplate on all the yummy foods you can eat,now that your allergy has been addressed.Since she unearths allergies you did not even knew you had,this is not a problem because you have been eating those things anyway and are not looking forward to wolfing it down once you get off the table because of the deprivation!!So you lie there with maybe ten tiny needles projecting out of you and contemplate on the next thing on your to-do list:pay bills,grocery shopping,homework for the kids.......not foods you can eat with gay abandon henceforth!!
Most non-allopathic treatments are kind of iffy because you don't see a sea change at once and also in away we are not used to this kind of intervention.
So I am hoping this works well enough that we back off the pills and try the needles more often!!