29 Oct 2024
The cute little red door stands out against the historic-looking white building on Chequer Street just along from Fat Face. I’ve often wandered past it and wondered what was in there and here I am ringing the bell of Herts Osteopathy where I’ve arranged to try some acupuncture.
Darren Haines of My Acupuncturist greets me at the top of the stairs and I instantly feel at ease. He has a lovely calm, smiley face and we go into a treatment room where we talk. And talk. And talk.
This is no surprise to me in one way, being of the talking persuasion but I must say, even I was slightly surprised by what was coming out.
I’ve had a literal A-Z of interesting and traumatic experiences across the last four plus decades and sometimes they like to pop up and say hello, especially to new people. It wasn’t at all what I was imagining for this appointment and I kept apologising for being too chatty.
We chat about health and life stuff, my anxiety, energy levels and obviously about Phyllis the house rabbit (nobody gets away without hearing about my double-maned lion-headed beauty).
Darren tells me that it is usual and important to have a chat during the first appointment which is longer than subsequent ones, should they take place.
He is a fully qualified traditional five element acupuncturist in London, St Albans and Bedford and has been so for more than three years.
Acupuncture is something I have been interested in for a while as a way to improve my general wellbeing and potentially to help the migraines that I get which are really hard to manage.
So what is acupuncture? “It’s a traditional Chinese practise which can help with “unblocking channels”, Darren tells me.
He explained that the Western medical model is mainly to medicate a symptom but the Chinese way is very interestingly holistic. I find it fascinating that the Chinese discovered 2,000 years ago where the points in the body were that would release and heal pain or injury.
And the bit you put the needle into isn’t necessarily the bit that you want to fix.
Like with anything we do in life, it’s often as much about the person carrying out the job as much as the service itself that’s important. And I find Darren to be really intuitive, professional, relational and good at building a rapport quickly. And he asks the right questions to paint a picture of what we are addressing.
(Imagine if a GP were to have those attributes!)
I felt like he got me which I really liked. I felt safe and unjudged. (Is that a word?!)
What did we do? On a first treatment, as this is, it’s quite usual to do a “clearing away of the dead leaves of the body” which I think he also referred to as a sort of sweep-through and he did this with needling in my back.
Twelve ultra-fine needles the width of less than two hairs of your head. They are solid and unlike a vaccination needle are not designed to inject anything into you, so they are gentler and you can’t feel much at all.
It is a detox job, from what I can gather: “We’re just going to clear out any toxins from the body. So, that can be bad toxins of our life lived, or it could be good toxins, anything from anaesthetics or antibiotics.
“They can, over time, block the system, block the acupuncture channels. We want to try and check that these blocks aren’t here at the moment and clear any meridians.
“And what we do with that is we put these needles in very superficially, so they’re practically hanging out of the body.”
He explains that these blocks might be caused by unresolved emotions, stress, diet/lifestyle or pathogenic factors. Also, that if any blocks are present then this initial treatment can help to ease my migraines as Qi flows smoothly again.
Any future treatments would be tailored to me as an individual, addressing the root causes which Darren would figure out as he talked through things with me as the weeks went on. It’s a bespoke programme, as it were.
Headaches are so common. Hertfordshire’s 1.2 million population (2021 census) tell us that there are more than 200,000 migraine sufferers in the county and more than 25,000 in St Albans with many more suffering regular headaches.
You’d think somebody might have come up with something other than those sanitary-towel-looking things you stick on your head or painkillers, wouldn’t you? Maybe they did…Two thousand years ago.
We talked further about the root causes of headaches generally. For example, it it’s stress, the acupuncture could be aimed at relieving the stress in the body.
It could be a bad back or neck or a postural problem or all of those in which case we would treat the back or neck to kill the headache.
It amazes me that these super thin tiny needles can potentially do all this stuff by pressing onto certain points in my body.
Clever eh? It’s all working on the nervous system, he says.
You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to. (It’s like the hairdressers in that way. Some folk like to just get on with it, according to my colourist. Some people even take their laptop to the salon nowadays apparently just as extra armour against being made to have a conversation.)
Some conversation is good during acupuncture – especially at first – to give the practitioner an overview of any health challenges or say what you want to address.
Darren said: “You mould yourself to them and how they want their treatment to be. And you pick up on the signs quite quickly.”
On headaches, Darren said: “The research indicates that acupuncture is an effective treatment option for those who suffer from headaches and migraines with the added benefits of reduced drug intake for individuals and lessening the time and cost burden on our NHS.”
After the needles in the back have been removed, he finishes with a needle in each of my wrists.
This was to ground the treatment as a whole and to calm the mind and nervous system. So not actually the heart itself but we used a point on the heart channel to achieve this.
Researchers did real acupuncture on people and pretended to do acupuncture on some other people and the brain flare was visible on the MRI scan.
This demonstrates that something physical happens in the brain when we do acupuncture.
Interestingly each channel in the body has a name of a body part it bypasses. For example, the liver channel starts in the big toe and runs up the foot and leg and finishes by the liver.
I ask Darren more about the pressure points in the body – there are more than 360 main ones plus extra points.
He said: “There are points right down from the tips of your toes to the top of your head.”
Acupuncture’s effectiveness for headaches and migraines is believed to be rooted in several mechanisms that help alleviate pain and reduce the frequency of attacks:
Pain relief through endorphin release
Acupuncture stimulates the release of endorphins, the body’s natural painkillers. These chemicals help reduce the perception of pain in both headaches and migraines without the side effects often associated with pain medications.
Regulation of blood flow
Acupuncture can promote improved blood flow to the brain and affected areas, helping to relieve the vascular changes that often occur during migraines.
Nervous system regulation
Headaches, particularly migraines, are often linked to overactivity in the nervous system. Acupuncture can help regulate this overactivity, calming the pathways that trigger headache pain.
Reduction in muscle tension
Acupuncture can relieve muscle tension, particularly in the neck, shoulders, and scalp, areas commonly associated with tension headaches. By relaxing these muscles, acupuncture reduces both the frequency and intensity of tension-type headaches.
Stress and anxiety management
Stress is a significant trigger for both headaches and migraines. Acupuncture sessions can lower levels of cortisol, the body’s primary stress hormone, and promote relaxation,
reducing the likelihood of stress-induced headaches.
Around 65 per cent of Darren’s clients are women. Acpuncture helps with menopause, fertility, and pregnancy. In fact, that is what inspired Darren to train as an acupuncturist
discovering the power of it in his own family.
Darren and his wife was undertaking IVF and in their second round when she had started having acupuncture treatment they found out that an egg had fertilised. They now have a seven-year-old daughter and Darren’s mentor whilst training was his wife’s acupuncturist.
So how did I feel after my first treatment? Straight after I was really perky. I felt energised and more free. I slept really well too. Better than I have in years.
The day after my back, neck and shoulders felt like they do a couple of days after going for a massage. My muscles felt relaxed and I could feel that my body had let go of tension in my neck and head too.
Two days afterwards I felt as if I had a powerful emotional release. Something seemingly small triggered a bit of a cry and a chat about something quite big from my past and then I felt amazing.
I wasn’t hormonal but it was a bit like that sort of ‘aaaargh’ feeling that you get after you have an outburst or smash a plate by accident and then burst into tears.
As the week went on I honestly felt that the session had had an impact on both my physical and emotional wellbeing in quite a number of ways. I’ve been eating healthier food, for example and standing up straighter. I have also not had a headache since.
I loved it so much that I actually saw Darren a week later and this time we worked on some different areas. I had needles in my wrists, feet and torso. It was more targeting of my wellbeing and again the results have felt like magic. It’s really fascinating and I can’t wait to discover more about it.
St Albans clinic is held on Tuesdays from 10am until 4pm and Saturdays from 9am until 1pm. Sessions start from £65.
