I have my first appt at 1:45pm today (so in a few hours).

Has anyone tried acupuncture and if so, what has your experience been in helping your PN?

I tried accupuncture for a year after my PN started because I didn't know what else to try. My accupuncturist was on the faculty of the Pacific School of Oriental Medicine here in San Diego.

Accupuncture helped headaches, toothaches, sore muscles, and even help clear my stuffed sinuses. Unfortunately, it had NO effect on my PN at all, either short term or long term. That was also the experience of anybody who tried it in the old PN boards.

It's still worth a try. We are all different and each of our PN has different and often multiple causes that makes our PNs completely individual. Accupuncture could give you dramatic relief and healing. You won't know until you give it a fair trial.

That was really, really weird. He said that I have problems with mercury, lead, aluminum, a parasite, and a fungus, all from a weird test. I don't know what to make of this at all. The whole time there seemed quite strange and somewhat like "voodoo magic" and nonsensical.

I recently tried acupuncture after after 3+ years of PN. The only thing that it helped was my acpuncturist's bank account.

Carlie

Acupuncture is like a lot of things: magnets, Zen, Anodyne, Rebuilder, Omnilight, supplements, and you name it. It might work for some and not help another in the least. I've always said that if eating the bark off a tree helps--- go for it.

voodoo is voodoo. But there are things that are helped by acupuncture. I think the best record is on muscular pain. But it's not going to fix damaged nerves, only spasm that might be resulting from them.

A couple of months ago I did a series of 3 acupuncture sessions, and I'll probably go back in a few weeks for a booster. But I have a lot of spasm in my back since the laminectomy. It loosened my back up immediately, and I do mean immediately. I could bend to put on my shoes, whereas before my back was too stiff for this. It lasted a few days, and improved again. The third session was a bust. It did nothing for pain, just ease of movement.

My acupuncturist is very western. He talks with people's doctors, letting them know what he finds. He doesn't care particularly about meridians, or hocus pocus. He says there are a few things he can almost always help, and somethings he can often help. But he leaves it at that.

The anesthesiologist who did my facet block yesterday also does acupuncture. But again, it's part of a western orientation and these practitioners have a good sense of what treatment works for what ailment.

The acupuncturist did not try to get me back, after the third session was bust. He thought maybe I might want to try in a few weeks or a month, but he was awfully happy to hear I was getting the facet block.

Accupunture, whether its the old needle method or lazor accupunture, i have found it definatly helps muscel spasms, headaches, lots of other things too.

When i first got PN i asked the doctor that does the accupunture for me if it would help my PN, he said straight out no, it won't help Neuritis " this fellow really knows his stuff, he often travels overseas for accupunture related business, so you would reckon he knows what his talking about.

Prior to asking him i phoned another Accupunturist [spell?] he said " yes, well can certainly give it a try and see what happens ", so anyway i told my doctor what he said and my doc said " he probably needs the money, i don't ", so that answer was good enough for me.
My Neuro said to me on my last visit," nerves won't heal if there not in the right inviroment", so i can't see now how accupunture could help nerve healing at all.

This is a crazy stretch but what if acupuncture helps put nerves into the right environment to heal? I don't believe in any of this really, but I am desperate :/
Acupuncture is pretty expensive so I'm very hesistant to go back if people aren't saying "well group x of people got relief, but group y can never get relief etc"

Hey, Dan- ain't that the way they found the ingredients in aspirin?

Opti....
The genearal consensus is, that acupunture (and regular chiropractors too), is a benefit to the bank accounts of the therapist, and 99% of the time is of no benefit to PN sufferers.
If you think you fit into the 1%, spend the money.

Desperation is just the opposite of what will help you. PN is a chronic disease, and healing, if any, is notoriously slow with progress measured in 6 month or yearly intervals, so you need to plan on dealing with this long-term in a measured, calm, powerful, and effective way.

In ten lifetimes with infinite money, you wouldn't be able to give a fair trial to everything that might or could possibly give you relief and healing. One more effective way to put the odds in your favor would be to get a good differential diagnosis of what is the primary cause(s) of your PN, and what can remediate those causes. For example, if you are diabetic or your body is insulin resistant, and you are overweight, it would make sense to loose weight and radically change your diet to a low-glycemic index diet. On the other hand, if the primary cause of your PN is celiac disease and gluten intolerance, you would need to change to a gluten free diet. If you don’t have a good doctor to help you get to the causes of your PN, that would be one way to start.

While working toward a diagnosis, you can do a lot for yourself. It all starts with a determination to get healthy again, no matter what it takes, and no matter how long it takes. Learn what helps heal nerves and do those things. Two great resources that weren't there when my PN started are the "Stickies:" section on the top of this forum, and www.google.com to do research. LizaJane’s charts (see the links to them in the "Stickies" section) will give you a powerful framework to structure your learning, evaluate what your doctors are doing, and what still needs to be done to get a diagnosis. The process of learning to deal with the PN effectively is itself worthwhile.

If you don't accept negative statements from doctors, learn all that you can, are willing to try what makes sense to you and what helps others, and are willing to make radical changes in your lifestyle, and if you never give in to cynicism or despair you will prevail.

Strong emotion, such as desperation and especially anger, makes our PN much worse. It triggers the flight-fight syndrome that interferes with digestion, reduces blood flow to the extremities, messes up our endocrine balance and our judgment, and alienates the people around us who we need to heal. Our adrenal glands dump steroids into our blood streams to prepare for battle, and then become exhausted. The liver dumps glucose into our bloodstream to prepare for battle or flight, the pancreas dump insulin to utilize the glucose for battle or flight, then all comes crashing down. You feel it in your aching feet for days. Teaching us to be calm and serene no matter what is one of the great gifts of having PN. There are other plusses as you'll discover.

I'm sorry you have PN, but be assured you will get a handle on it and learn to live with it and even help heal it, with or without doctors' help. Depending on the cause, you may be experiencing the worst right now, and it will slowly get better over time if you create an internal and external environment that allows your nerves to heal. That's my experience. All you have to do is read the "Stickies", do other research, and empower yourself with knowledge, commitment, and real power to make a difference for yourself.