What is the experience of Acupuncture and Electrotherapy?
1. Foreword
Because of regular check-ups for lumbar disc herniation, the doctor arranged acupuncture and electrotherapy as adjuvant therapy this time. Having never experienced this before, I thought I would record my actual feelings.
2. Actual Experience
2.1 Acupuncture
The most painful part of acupuncture is when the needles are inserted and pulled out. Your muscles will tighten uncontrollably, and the doctor will also adjust the position of the needles, causing more pain. Then when the doctor turns on the machine, you will feel pulses extending along the needles into your body. If you tell the doctor that the feeling is too strong, they can also adjust the pulse sensation to be smaller.
The actual situation looks something like this (picture from the internet)
Then the doctor will let you lie down for half an hour. During this half hour, you won't feel the pulses, but you will feel the needles heating up, just like using a hair dryer on the hot setting and blowing continuously on the place where the needles are inserted.
Will it feel scalding? No. It feels more like a mini hot water bottle stuffed into your muscles.
After about 7 or 8 minutes, because I was lying on my stomach, when I tried to exert force to change my posture, I couldn't feel that part of the muscle exerting force. Instead, I felt a distinct soreness and swelling in the place where the needles were inserted.
While lying down, I moved my toes from time to time to test if I still had feeling. Although it's a bit funny and I'm very afraid of death, that was my thought at the time.
After half an hour, it finally ended. Although pulling out the needles was not as painful as inserting them, there was still some pain.
The soreness and swelling disappeared instantly, but I doubted if I could still get out of bed. Fortunately, everything was normal. After walking a bit, it even seemed that the stiffness in my left leg and buttocks before acupuncture had really disappeared? Is this my illusion?
Before I could carefully compare the feelings before and after acupuncture, electrotherapy was coming right up.
2.2 Electrotherapy
The process of electrotherapy is simpler. You just need to sit on a chair and describe the painful area to the doctor. Then the doctor will stick electrode pads on you, press the start button, and the electrotherapy begins. The feeling of electrotherapy is mainly the current released by the electrode pads?
Appearance of electrode pads
It brings a numb feeling, coming in waves, which is actually a bit comfortable... I thought for a long time about how to describe this feeling. It's like the numbness that makes your mouth drool after eating three packs of spicy fish tails in a row. Except this time there is only numbness, no spiciness.
Actually, before the electrotherapy, I wanted to ask if I could do it standing up. After all, sitting for a long time with lumbar disc herniation will definitely make my feet numb. Unsurprisingly, even while sitting for electrotherapy, the faint numbness in my left foot still emerged, but it was completely suppressed by the electric numbness released from the electrode pads, so I could hardly feel the numbness that usually occurs after sitting for a while. And this tingling sensation really made me want to laugh.
During the process, other patients were sitting opposite or next to me, using the same electrotherapy machine. Some had uncomfortable shoulder blades, and some even had uncomfortable hearts. I doubted if heart discomfort could really be treated with electrotherapy? Isn't that a defibrillator?
After finishing, walking on the way out of the hospital, I could still feel the slight numbness from the area where I just had electrotherapy. I could even feel the friction between the waist muscles mixed with the tingling sensation when walking. It was quite strange, a bit like someone tickling you with a feather duster while you are walking, but the ticklish part is in the waist muscles, and the feeling is even more obvious when walking a little faster. At this time, I had ignored the original discomfort in my buttocks, replaced by this tingling sensation surrounding the waist area.
It takes about 20 minutes to walk from the hospital to where I live. Along the way, I could feel this tingling sensation gradually weakening. When I stopped to wait for the traffic light, I could clearly feel it, and the feeling was different at this time. It was like a large glass of cola had just been poured for you, and the bubbles 🫧 of the cola were bubbling out from your waist. It can be considered that my waist muscles also drank a glass of cola.
By the time I got home, I could hardly feel that bubbly sensation anymore.