Whew! My First Acupuncture Treatment
Hey y'all, welcome to another episode of the Working Mamas podcast. I am Nikki Winston and so excited and glad glad to have you tuning in and rocking with me today. I am here to talk about a plethora of things. I am a certified public accountant. I'm also a CPA exam instructor and coach.
Nikki:I'm a writer. I'm a podcaster. I am a CPA firm owner and I like to give career advice and share my experiences as a black woman slash disruptive millennial working in corporate America, but also running my own businesses. And one of the things about my podcast is that it's very cathartic for me. It's very therapeutic in a way for me.
Nikki:And so I don't edit my podcast. I want the organic emotion, the feeling, the moment to live through the episodes. And I don't wanna edit out something just because I take a sip of water or I clear my throat or one of my kids barges in to my studio while I'm recording. So I'm excited to jump into today's episode. If you are tuning in for the first time, welcome.
Nikki:Thank you for being here. If you are a regular listener, hey, hello, welcome back. So excited to have y'all rocking with me. So let your network know that you are listening to this episode by using the hashtag working mamas, w e r k I n m o m m a s. Also feel free to tag me on social media.
Nikki:My handle is nickwinstoncpa, N I K K W I N S T O N C P A. You can also find more information about my firm, the Winston CPA Group, about my ghostwriting and content creation services, as well as get right for the CPA exam all on my website at nickwinstoncpa.com. And you can also find me on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter nickwinstoncpa. So let's jump into this episode. Grab your water, grab your tea, grab your whiskey, whatever pleases your palate.
Nikki:Let's go.
Nikki:So I went for my first acupuncture treatment today, and I had an expectation. I kinda did, and I kinda didn't. I didn't know if it would alleviate the pain, the lower back pain, my arthritic thumb, etcetera. And so I was like, let me not take the approach of what is it gonna fix, but why I'm here, which is to incorporate more holistic things into my health regimen, my well-being regimen. And I said, I'm not gonna go in here with any expectations.
Nikki:Let me just be open minded. I'm not gonna worry about what these needles look like, where they're gonna go, is it gonna hurt, how many are there? And I went in, I got on the table and my doctor was explaining some things and what he was about to do. And I asked him a couple of questions and he had his little dry humor when I said, so how many needles is it going to be? So everything I said, wasn't going to do.
Nikki:I wasn't going to question. I started asking him a bunch of questions like, are you going to put the first one? How many is it going to be? And so he's laughing like, oh, it's going be a lot of needles like a porcupine. And he was making a joke, but he said, it depends on, you know, everybody's different.
Nikki:So people get different needles in different places. And I was wondering like, what does it look like? Am I really going to look like almost like a porcupine, like he said, like, how is this going to work? So I was thinking I was going to have like just pins all over my body and it was going to sting and burn and hurt. And I got to say, I knew when he was starting because I heard the papers opening because he was explaining about his needles and their disposable needles and all these other things.
Nikki:So I knew when the package was opening, but when it came for the first needle, I was like, wow, it's taken them a long time. But he had already put the first needle in. I had no idea. So it's not like a needle when you get a vaccine or IV, it's not those type of needles. And I think that's what a lot of people misconstrue when they think about acupuncture is that it's painful because of the optics of it all.
Nikki:When you think about acupuncture, you think about you getting stuck all over your body with a bunch of needles. And it's supposed to be some traditional medicine, traditional Chinese medicine, which it is. And that's what had me interested in it and why I wanted to do that instead of anti inflammatories or prescriptions or something like that. I'm choosing to do more holistic things that'll treat multiple ailments or just bring about maintenance in my body. So in typical episode fashion, there's a knock at my door.
Nikki:It's my daughter, and I hear paws scratching the door. So it's also the dog. Let's see what they want. So my daughter said, the dog wants to hang out with me. The dog smelled my chicken and wild rice soup and wanted to come in here and watch me eat it like I was gonna give her some.
Nikki:That's what that was. But anyway, back to acupuncture. So what was I talking about? The needles going in. I didn't know when the needles were going in.
Nikki:Sometimes I didn't know where. And I say that to give you context about how it's not painful. It's not it's not painful. I don't I was trying to count how many needles there were, but again, I couldn't keep up. And I told myself, we're not gonna overthink this.
Nikki:We're here to relax, to get some relief, you know, and I took that approach. So I started off laying on my back. My doctor was asking me questions like where the areas of pain were. So of course, me, my lower back, my right hip, which I think the hip is coming from the back. That's what I think.
Nikki:But what do I know? I'm not a doctor. That's what I think. And so he'll target those areas. And then like other his recommended areas.
Nikki:So I had, I do know I had he started at my ankles. I think I had some needles there. I didn't feel those go in. I had a couple on the on the front. What is this called?
Nikki:Let me go back to anatomy and physiology. My fibula because the tibia is in the back. I always remembered the fibula in the front because they both start with f. So right along my fibula bone, the long the bone in the front of your leg under your knee, I think there were a couple there. He put some on both sides of my knees, and I might've had some on my thighs.
Nikki:I think I did. I'll come back to that in a second. But there were a lot on my right hip. I just kept hearing them. I kept hearing that paper tear open.
Nikki:So I knew it was a lot over there. I had a couple around my navel. I think I had a couple in my chest, some in my forearms. I had them in my ears. That was interesting.
Nikki:It had to be at least five in each ear, five needles in each ear. Now I I felt the pinches more in my ears, but I think that's because the skin and the tissue in our ears is so fragile and so thin. But I would say if I had 10, if I had five needles in each ear, so that's 10, I probably felt one or two of the needles. And it really felt like if you've ever poked yourself, not like intentionally, but like just like tapped yourself with a toothpick, the end of a toothpick. That's that's how it felt.
Nikki:So I sat there for about twenty minutes. And first I tried to lift up because I wanted to see, like, let me see what these needles look like sticking out of me, but I couldn't see number one. And number two, I didn't want to move too much because I got needles all over me. Right. So I laid there and I was like, I'm just not going to think about it overanalyze.
Nikki:So some super zen music is playing. The ocean waves are and he had the heater on my feet. So my feet was just so warm and toasty. And I sat there for a minute. I didn't feel anything for a few minutes.
Nikki:I was just like, how do I know if this is working? What am I supposed to feel? What's next? So maybe about five to seven minutes, I really didn't feel anything. And then I started feeling after that a little bit of pulsating or like a tingling.
Nikki:It was like each needle was starting to form its own energy almost. Like they all started pulsating, like it was just a different rhythm. And when I started to notice the pulsating, it sounded to me like the music was changing as far as it was becoming, the music was becoming more crispier almost like the ocean waves felt like I wasn't just listening to the ocean waves, but I was laying on the ocean and the ocean was right there. So it felt like my hearing became clearer and the music became more vibrant and more defined. So it was weird, but I remember feeling that.
Nikki:And so I'm laying there just in the zone. I could tell that my heart rate, my breathing had relaxed a little bit that I was able to tell. And I want to say I had dozed off for a couple of minutes. It was that deep of a relaxation and you're not moving. So that's the other thing that really, it reminded me a lot of corpse pose in yoga.
Nikki:Your body's not moving. I didn't want to flinch. Like I don't want to, you know, move the wrong way and something happens with a needle or something. And I really just, I didn't want to, I just wanted to be present. And I said, let me not move.
Nikki:Let me not try to see what's what. I'm not taking no pictures, you know, none of that. I just, let me just be present. And I got back after I was had all this going on in my head. I got back to this super relaxed state.
Nikki:And then by this time, it's about twenty minutes, my doctor comes back in and he asked me, how am I feeling? I told him, I feel good. I feel super relaxed. And he says, okay, now we're going to take these out and then we're going to do your back side. So now as he's now I know where the needles are because I feel them as he pull them out.
Nikki:Right? Like bing, bing, bing, bing. Oh, that's what that was a needle. That was a needle. Oh, that was a needle.
Nikki:So it still wasn't painful though. It was like, if you had a piece of, like, clear tape stuck on you and you had to pull it off, or you had a band aid, you pulled off a band aid somewhere where it wasn't like ripping the hair off. It was just like pulling the adhesive off. It felt like some adhesive was being pulled off of my skin. So it wasn't terrible.
Nikki:So that's when I'm like, oh, okay, this is where all of the needles are. So then I turn over on my back and now he goes to my hip, my lower back and my hip from the backside. At first we were on the front side. So now he hits those same spots from the back. And then before that though, I had, I think I had a couple in the back of my calves.
Nikki:I know I definitely had them in the back of my knees, on the sides of my thighs, maybe my hamstrings, I don't know. But when he got to my lower back, the top of my butt, what's it called? Lumbar sacral. That's where most of my inflammation is. He would like press around.
Nikki:He would say, does this hurt? I'm like, oh, yes. That feels like pins and needles. Yes. And he would he put the needle right there.
Nikki:So he put that needle in and I felt that one. It felt I felt a little like a tingle or burn when he put that one in. So then now he goes along my lower back, like, across the top of both my butt cheeks basically. And it was almost like, I was imagining that my back looked like a forest along my lower back because it felt like he, every other, every other centimeter he was putting the needle. Like I heard that paper just opening so fast.
Nikki:And I started to feel these a lot more, a lot more pings, a lot more sticks and burns. And I was wondering, am I feeling these a lot more because this is where the inflammation is? Because then he goes up my middle back, put a couple there, put some in my, like right around my traps, my trapezius muscles in my back. I had a needle in the back of my neck, At the top of my neck, like right where your your your head and your neck meet, the nape of your neck, right there. I had a needle right there.
Nikki:And I felt that when he put that in, but it wasn't painful. It was almost like a, it was like a release of something when he put that one in. So that was the only needle. I don't know why it felt different. The one in the back of my neck.
Nikki:It didn't feel painful. It felt like a release. So back to my lower back because this is where he was just lining them up, lining them up. And I was really, really feeling those. So same thing now I'm laying face down and I have the needles on my backside and I'm starting to feel warmth.
Nikki:I said, that has to be that inflammation. That has to be my lower back. And then I feel this rush of relaxation. I took my mask off because it was going to be hard to relax with this mask on and on face down. So I took my mask off and I know I dozed off at this point.
Nikki:I'm laid here. My my arms are down like palms up. I I knew I dozed off. I woke up a little because I heard him come back in the room for something. And then he went back out.
Nikki:Then I started having these thoughts like, this is my first time here. Is that really the doctor? I think I've been watching way too much Ozark because I was like, what if somebody come in the room who really ain't the doctor and they try and I was like, look, get this out of your head. Where is this even coming from? That's literally what the words that were being exchanged in my head at that moment.
Nikki:So I let that go and I relaxed about twenty minutes. It was the same thing. He came back in, took the needles out. I felt them. So you feel them more when they come out.
Nikki:I guess at that point, if they've been sitting there for twenty minutes, they've been kind of just set up shop wherever they were. So that's why you could feel them coming out, not so much going in. But I don't know what I'm supposed to feel after. I have actually felt more relaxed. I felt less stressed.
Nikki:He told me he put the needles in my ears to take my stress levels down. I felt a lot more relaxed. I feel more loose and nimble, especially in my back that's usually super stiff. And it's been a couple hours. So I feel a little bit of What do I feel?
Nikki:I can tell that I've been poked and prodded. Like I can start to feel in the back of my knee, for example, I can start to feel that something was there. So, I don't know what that is. I'm going to do some research after this to understand that my doctor said, make sure you drink water, don't do anything too strenuous, no working out, no nothing like that but I really like him. He's very nice.
Nikki:He gets straight to the point. You get started. Whatever your appointment time is, that's when you get started. You might even get started before that. Like he is straight up and down and very, very nice.
Nikki:So I'm going to go back in a month and I'm going to keep going once a month and we'll see how this goes. But I wanted to share this because this is a component of my self care and how I take care of myself. People think about self care as being a massage or, you know, they try to put it in a box, but self care is whatever you are doing to make you feel good. That gives you an opportunity to relax, de stress, take a minute and just breathe. So that can be watching your favorite show.
Nikki:That can be going to get a massage. That's always a great idea. Taking yourself out to dinner, going for a walk, whatever that looks like to you. So there is no set definition, no right or wrong answer to how you should take care of yourself. That's your choice.
Nikki:Whatever makes you feel good. But just know that that can be anything, right? So I'll make sure that in between our episodes about being mamas and working in corporate and starting businesses and going back to work and how to kill it at work and things like that, that we take time to talk about these kinds of things. So each time I go, I'll report back, let y'all know how I'm feeling about how many needles I got. Today, if I had to count, I would say it had to be close to a 100 needles today between front and back.
Nikki:And about a third of them were probably in my back, if not more. So I would say, I would estimate about a 100. Would I recommend it for somebody who is looking for alternatives to NSAIDs, anti inflammatories, prescriptions, I absolutely would. I do feel good. I do feel some relief.
Nikki:My pain level is lower than it would normally be. And I'm always willing to give holistic living a try. So, so yeah, I'll report back. Let me go check on my daughter and my dog. Apparently my dog misses me, but I think she just wants to eat my food.
Nikki:So thank you all for tuning in. Check us out online, theworkingmamas.com, werkinm0mmas.com. That's also the hashtag, workingmamas. And let your friends know, let your besties know, your other mom, friends, your whole community know that you are listening and tuned into the Working Moms podcast. Thank y'all for rocking with me.
Nikki:I will talk to y'all soon. Y'all be good.
