Acupuncture 

"I can honestly tell you I didn't feel a thing when I tried it," a colleague said to me when it was suggested I give acupunture a go.

The same colleague whose threshold for pain extends to cracking her head outside Longs Bar once - and dismissing the four-inch wound as 'just a scratch'. So I still had my doubts.

Second-thoughts that extended right up until the moment I laid back at the Treatment Rooms in Shrivenham, waiting for the first needle to go in.

 

On the couch: I lie back, as Monica pops the first pin in

But by the time I realised Monica, my delightfully friendly therapist, had already popped three into my lower leg before I felt the slightest tingling sensation, I knew I had nothing to fear.

"This one will help your liver," Monica reassured me, pointing at the tiniest of pins protruding out from just beneath my knee, "it's got a low energy at the moment."

A nice way of telling me I drink a little too much, I thought, wondering what would come next.

Pins and Needles acupuncture experience

 
Except nothing did - except a feeling of complete and utter relaxation. Helped in no small way by Monica giving me a soothing foot massage while the acupunture took effect.

A quick mention that she picked up I was a little 'run-down' and needed a 're-balancing' of something or other, a bit of a hazy blur to be truthful.

The surroundings and the manner in which everything was explained making it me think what the fuss was all about.

 

Pin-point accuracy: I received, amongst others, an acupuncture  needle strategically placed in Meridian 36 -  stomach, which is a point just below the knee

The theory of how it all works? And how it's an ancient Chinese art that aims to restore the balance of your universal energy through the painless application of fine needles into strategic points on the body........

....... no I didn't think you'd want to know either!

I just wanted to know whether it worked or not - and whether it hurt!
And on both counts I can say it's a resounding YES on the first question and a NO on the latter.

After work that day I genuinely felt better in myself than I'd felt for days.

A really great feeling of well-being.

Now just get me a glass of wine, will you!?