Saturday, January 17, 2009

I love Herb the white acupuncture dude!


I have a had a really rough last couple of weeks. I don't think I've gotten more than 4 hours sleep in one night in over 2 weeks. It doesn't matter what time I go to bed, I wake up at 1:30 a.m. WIDE awake. I lie there and stare at the ceiling mostly, but sometimes I get up and surf the net, or read a book. Regardless, I stay awake until at least 5:30 and sometimes never get back to sleep at all. Needless to say, I'm a zombie at work come about 3:00 in the afternoon. it got to the point where I was on the verge of tears just about constantly because I was just DONE for.


I had insomnia when I was pregnant with Henry, and desparate for some sleep, I finally gave into Brenda's suggestion of trying acupuncture. And, shockingly, it worked back then. So, after a couple of weeks of memorizing my ceiling texture, I decided to make an appointment with good old Herb for this pregnancy too. (I didn't do it sooner because it's expensive...$80 a visit...and not covered by insurance).


Anyway, it was worth every last penny because last night I slept for EIGHT hours straight!!!! For the first time in over two weeks! Oh, it was heaven! It's amazing how we take things for granted!


For the record, acupuncture DOES NOT hurt even one little bit. The needles are so so so thin...about the thickness of a human hair...so you don't even feel it. It's pretty wild. He put a dozen or so in my back, one in each ear, my ankles and my wrists. There was one that did pinch a bit when he stuck it in, and when I flinched he said "oh that's your adrenals...they work pretty hard when you're not sleeping well." Amazing. (Oh, and this is all coming from the same girl who can hardly have blood drawn without passing out!) If I was rich, I would seriously get acupuncture regularly! It's awesome!

4 comments:

joy said...

i hate insomnia! so glad that the acupuncture works for you. that's very interesting--i've always been curious about that. glad you got some good sleep! and i was serious today about my offer of driving you around later on in your pregnancy if you can't reach the pedals.

Jacquelyn said...

Seriously ... his name is Herb? I totally believe in Eastern medicine. When I was pregnant with Eliannah in order to sustain the pregnancy I drank the nastiest concoction on earth from an herbalist friend. To date Eliannah is the only one in the family without allergies, asthma, has never had an ear infection, never has had any antibiotics and was the only member of our family that didn't get the flue when we were passing it back and forth this fall. Could just be coincidence but the herbs I took were so nasty I'm sure there had to be a connection :) (oh and if you ever need a break we'd love to bring you dinner sometime, or help with Henry ... or whatever.)

The Kothe Clan said...

Perhaps I need to try this. My current remedy is pass out at 9pm from complete exhaustion, wake up at 1 or 2am and take one tylenol pm and then pass out until 6. Some nights I am up at 2am thinking about all of the changes and others, I just lay completely awake.

Joanie said...

Wow, what a cool thing. Insomnia is the pits. Glad to hear there's a remedy!