Fainting and acupuncture

[fjtfvkgk]

Hi

I attended an acupuncturist for the first time today, He has 6 weeks to go until his training is completed and I volunteered to go along as a case study.
He took a good detailed case history. He put about 5 needles into my shoulder/neck area, where I sometimes have bad pain. He put one about 3 inches below my navel, and one in each arm around my wrist. he then put one on my right leg at the top of my calf and one on the front of my foot at the base of my big toe. These last two felt very painful at first(particularly the leg one - the pain was radiating down to my ankle) and then I started to feel nauseous and dizzy and then passed out for a few moments. I had a very bad pain right across the area below my diaphragm and my gall bladder got very warm and very sore. There was also a pain over my liver area.

He immediately removed all the needles and started to massage points on my feet.
It took me about 20mins before the pain/dizziness had subsided completely and I felt well enough to get up.

He said he was very suprised by the reaction and would change the treatment the next time I came.

However, as you can imagine I am very apprehensive about returning. Are these normal reactions?
I would appreciate any advice!

Thanks

 

[?Ms.LaLa?]

Hi Curranty bun,

Don't worry too much about the reaction you had, everybody reponds differently to acupuncture for the first time. It could just be a case that your blood pressure became too low. I myself have felt like this before and i have been treated with acupuncture on and off for nearly 20 years. A strong treatment can have a strong effect initially, and sometimes the body will react by going into fight or flight mode which is amplified when you have needles in. It happens to all practitioners at some stage.

When western doctors/gp administers drugs they have no idea how an individual patient may react, they can only use their training and better judgement to improve the condition with this new evidence.

This experience has 'hopefully' made the practitioner re-examine your diagnosis and will provide you with a far better treatment next time.

Your apprehension is justified, but don't give up! Traditional Chinese Medicine is a very powerful tool and will bring you great health benifits.

I hope this has eased your mind.

INDO

 

[fomvfppp]

Hi there

I have been having acupuncture for some 20 years now and have only had this reaction once - I was being treated sitting at the time. It has been a wonderful support through some exceedingly stressful times in a way that drugs would have probably made me more ill. Stick with it! It's unfortunate that you had this reaction first time off, but then it does show how powerful this treatment can be, and it can be enormously helpful.

All the best

Caroline

 

[Fred375]

Thanks - that has eased my mind.
I'll definitely go back.

 

[Trust The Fungus 1776]

One of my collegues had exactly the same thing happen whilst treating a patient in a seated position. He himself was shocked at the time but he had the knowledge to recover the situation..... no worries.

INDO

 

[tmjeafvk]

I had the same thing happening to me at one of my first acupuncture section - pretty scary! But I kept on doing it and it has never happened again fortunately.

 

[word]

Needle shock is not an uncommon reaction.

We were taught to use gentle points during a first treatment, if the patient had never had acupuncture before, to help us to judge their sensitivity to treatment.

Several points are quite common in causing needle shock - but dont let it put you off having treatment - the practitioner will be able to change their point prescription to take account of any reaction you have had previously.