former Classmates

I'm coming up on the five year reunion with my acupuncture class. As with anything, it's interesting to see what experience they've compiled over the last half decade coupled with their Master of Acupuncture degree. You can search through the web lookers and see who has what kind of practice these days. With any group, there is the bell curve distribution. Of the forty in class of Sept '03, 10% have a thriving practice and I'll define that as seeing more than 25 patients per week in an office setting outside their home. I misss them.

So Many Questions

How many needles do you use in a treatment? Maybe about a dozen.

How long is it? About 75 minutes.

Do I take off my clothes? Probably, except for your underwear

Do I have to believe in it for it to work? No more than believing in electricity.

Will it hurt? Much less than a heartbreak of any kind.

How do you know what to treat? I listen so intently to what you say and how you say it, and to what your pulses tell me.

Do you treat outside of the office? I do home visits as well as treat people in the local rest homes and rehab facilities.

Any side effects? The most common side effect is falling asleep and I get a gold star if you go to sleep, and two gold stars if you snore.

Do you take insurance? Yup, if your insurance pays for it, I’ll accept it.

7,000/161

Your work is to discover you work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it. - Buddha

How I Got Started in Acupuncture

     My fabulous wife had been getting regular acupuncture treatment for ten years and had said "you really should go, it’ll do something for your blood pressure." So I finally went, not without a little grumble.

     Anyhow, I had the very patient practitioner take my BP before the treatment and during the treatment, and sometimes when I was standing or lying on my side and practically in every permutation besides eating the green eggs and ham. And, after about eight weeks, it had come down about 20 points, keeping me drug free.

     Now the really interesting thing was how I would watch the looks on folks’ faces as they would come out of her office and I thought “I’d like to be able to provide that.”

     Circumstances eventually led to the universe saying “sure, come on down Route 29 to acupuncture school.”

7,000/161

When you don't have any money, the problem is food. When you have money, it's sex. When you have both, it's health. If everything is simply jake, then you're frightened of death. - J.P. Donleavy

My Name Badge

     Each student got a 1 x 3 blue name badge when we started to the Tai Sophia Institute acupuncture school. It was a pin-on plastic with white letters. I just threw mine away about a week ago, of course. Our acupuncture class started out with 40 students, a large class, maybe the largest class the school had seen in thirty plus years.
     And, it became quickly evident that not all were meant to finish the 4 year program, at least not at the same time. So as each student left the program, either dropping back a class or flunking out (which was rare) or leaving through other avenues, I wrote their name on the badge's back as a way for me, for all of us to remember them.
     I remember referring to the badge when in school, reminding myself of them.

2,000/160

What is this about being real? About doing life in front of everyone all the time?

What better time to begin a blog than right after suffering food poisoning? No, not my enemies, I did it to myself with some innocent home-based seafood.

Author Gary Vaynerchuk of "Crush It" fame says I should monetize my personal brand at every opportunty, so please forgive the Google inserted ads (they are based on my "word frequency" and other stuff in the post).

What's of value to you? What's important? The web, the news, the significant outcomes. We'll see.

I'm planning to post about me, the acupuncture journey and the patients' experiences. More to follow. . .