u/parasitepuppy

Hi! I just started acupuncture two days ago due to a yin deficiency that manifests with severe insomnia, excessive sweating, heavy period bleeding and TMJ.

The needles went on my shins, wrists and belly. At first I had to actively relax my muscles but they'd just tense up again, treatment seemed to be working cause I ended up falling asleep on the table after the first 15 minutes. I felt quite relaxed afterwards, but 5 or 6 hours later I started getting a headache, mainly on the right side of my head and eye region, and then it became a dull, static pain located on the back of my head (I could tell it was tensional, right at the end of the nape). When I got on the bus to go back home I was so tired I couldn't keep my eyes open, and while I was nodding off my jaw clenched so forcefully and suddenly I bit my tongue on my sleep, got a nasty wound. I did some grounding and meditation as soon as I got home and the headache went away almost instantly. Is this just my nervous system freaking out, is it OK for it to freak out like that? I'm super apprehensive and I'm thinking about canceling my next appointment cause the discomfort felt like it was too much for me at the moment. The practitioner seemed very careless when inserting the needles (the room had very, very dim lighting too) and one of them left a visible wound afterwards, my worst fear is nerve damage due to malpractice. Should I still give it a go?

Edited to add context.

I'm absolutely obsessed with the scent of the Moroccanoil hair treatment & I was curious about their body oil! I'd love to use it as a perfume. Does it have the same scent or is it slightly different? *For reference I have tried both the perfume & the body mist, and I don't think they smell anything like the hair oil :(

So about 2 months ago I got an eye infection and it ended up becoming something way bigger than I initially expected. It's gonna require making a big, permanent hole on the nasal bone, through an incision next to the eye socket. Plus a dissection + rough reconstruction of the lacrimal sac and lots of repositioning of tissue to create a man-made, artificial tear drainage system through the bone (dacryocystorhinostomy). I know it's not the worst thing that could have happened. But I am so distraught. It was so unexpected. I'm very apprehensive and just the thought of having a permanent, open hole the size of a 12mm bullet as an unnatural drainage passway and a mutilated tear conduct all under the rather thin skin of my nose really makes me nauseous and weak on the knees. It gives me a funny, unpleasant feeling on my upper body that extends down to the lower region of my stomach. Plus, being a medical student I'm really afraid it'll have a long-term influence on my health cause everything is so interconnected and every tissue has a purpose no matter how insignificant it might seem to us. Scarred tissue and bone fracture are a recipe for fascial adhesions and bone density loss. And there's a lot about the body we don't know yet. I have had another nose surgery and it was a very traumatic process to me, which probably just adds up to the unease. I'm a 24 yo woman, and I can't help but also worry about how all of this is going to affect my appearance. I know it's superficial and I should be grateful cause *there's always worse* but I was just finally starting to love how I look after a whole life of low self esteem & insecurities. That was so important to me.

I've been dealing with so many awful things that have happened in the span of 3 months, back to back, with no time to process anything. I have never had to go through so much in my entire life. I also had to drop out of college & I needed to find a full time job to help with the debt of my father's brain tumor surgery and post-treatment, and now this surgery is just going to add up to that debt.

These last 4 years I have been putting so much work to heal both mentally and physically from past trauma, I've been making use of my own studies and implemented everything one could think of: journaling, meditation, EFT, somatic therapy and nervous system regulation, myofascial release, herbal medicine, qi gong & TCM, yoga & aryuveda, etc. I don't even recognize who I was before I started my healing journey, but now I find myself overwhelmed. I feel stuck and unable to move through this, as if there was nothing I could do to make it more bearable. As if I was up against a wall, had nothing left in me to fight with and everything towered over me. I'm even questioning my beliefs. I'm still not that strong of a person yet and I know in life there's much, *much* harsher things, but that thought doesn't manage to broaden my perspective, it just makes me think I'm so weak I can't even handle something that it's not even that bad.

I have one month until the surgery.

Is there anything I could do to help with fear of procedures and permanent body modifications? How does one become stronger and more resilient, is it an intrinsic value or can you cultivate it somehow?

I have no one to talk with and I feel so alone.

I'm praying that anyone that is suffering, hurting or afraid finds comfort soon. I just want things to be lighter.