So I arrive and immediately tell her I feel like crap. My appointment with her two weeks ago for acupuncture was cancelled and now I have been without it for four weeks. She informed me that my over indulgence in gluten over the holiday was my "lesson" and I should use it as a tool to stay on track. Yea most definitely. I will, I promise.
I talked to her a bit about my rib pain. For those that don't know, and you should be glad I haven't complained to you, I have had this chronic rib pain for about 6 months now. Sometimes it is worse than others but all together it is just annoying. It is not a pain that I cannot live with, but it is more so just always there, it hurts to touch, to move in certain ways, and most certainly to stretch. Hugging someone was even painful at times.
Let me just explain to you what I have experienced with this rib....
At first I thought my rib hurt because I was sleeping on a new bed, and it did not have a mattress pad. So after shopping around for the best of the best mattress pad, I bought one. It was no help. I still had pain.
Then I was convinced I had a tumor. Cause that is what I do...naturally.
So I went to the doctors. The doctor told me it was anxiety and stress. Like usual. And I left with two different prescriptions to up the doses on my Xanax. The doctor insisted on increasing my dose on my Xanax even though I explained to her I don't even take the ones she originally prescribed to me. She suggested I take the pills and relax.
So I did. And I was wasted and felt little to nothing. Felt good for a bit. But it returned.
I went back to the doctors. Told her again. She sends me for X-Rays and an UltraSound. I get both. Both are perfectly normal. But anyway...all results were normal.
$1400 in medical bills and a mattress pad later I was left with no explanation. And now just beginning to think I was just crazy.
So it continued. And it was hard to do certain things at the gym, or sleep on my stomach, and even hug my fiance. I was constant complaining about this stupid ass rib. I was annoyed I had no idea what was going on and what I could do for this thing.
But mostly I wanted to stop diagnosing my self with a serious life threatening illness. If you could even see the search results on my browsing history you would die. From laughter.
I tell Cheryl about my rib pain, and its like its no big thing. She touches my stomach and is like yea I feel some knots in there. Let me do some Gua Sha.
"Some WHAT?!"
Next thing you know I am getting Gua Sha. She is like "ohhhhh yea, you got an old injury in here" Look she says. I look down and my entire stomach is like red and looks like a serious skin rash/bruise. She says, "when you have an injury your stomach turns red like this, otherwise it would just be pink from the little rubbing I am doing."
I am fascinated. I didn't even feel anything. It just felt like she is rubbing a cap to a jar smoothly over my skin. This cannot work.
So we will see if it does. Right now it feels entirely different. It is just sore like a bruise, and entirely different feeling from before.
And here's the link to Gua Sha if you want to take a read.
http://www.delvalacupuncture.com/CherylsSite3/Gua%20Sha.htm
Crossing my fingers.
This is what it looked like after Gua Sha
