Feb 18 - Vanessa

ok, this is what i'm wearing today, but I also wore this on saturday, when I had the most wicked awful migraine ever.

Friday night it started coming on, and I was like, "Crap, this is not going to be good". I get migraines often, and it seems like they are occuring more frequently lately, which sucks. I had more fittings and meetings for my next runway show and I was not excited about going to that with my head throbbing and being in immense pain.

Lately my migraines have been accompanied by THE WORST side effect, eye swelling. I guess this only happens with 9% of migraine sufferers, lucky me. My eyes swell and then have PITTING EDEMA, which means when i wear my glasses, they leave deep marks on my face, it is FREAKING HORRID. Esp in my line of work, this is not acceptable.

Also, due to my animated personality, the pitting edema causes creasing around my eyes, so that they look like YODA's. Cute on him, not on me.

The eye swelling, combined with the usual migraine effects of decline of mental acuity... inability to focus my eyes... oh and the INTENSE PAIN. was driving me insane. I've tried everything on earth, I was like, "I need relief NOW!" So i called an acupuncture place, I've always heard that works well for migraines, I've never tried it for that. I did acupuncture once for shoulder pain, and it made my shoulder numb, VICTORY! So I thought I'd give it a shot (or a stab? LOL).

So I walked into the Troy Acupuncture Center to see Dr. Shuyun Xu. 2073 E. Maple Rd. Troy, MI 48083. 248-918-2958. www.troyacupuncture.com

Not a lot was said, there was a lot of ordering around, and examining of me. A couple questions. Dr. Xu regarded me and took me to a treatment room, where she inserted approximately 12 million needles into my FACE, head, neck, legs and belly. I walked into the clinic in 10 out of 10 pain. Incapacitating. I could barely drive. As she was inserting the needles, I was feeling the pain melt away. I swear. Some of them did hurt as she put them in, esp in the legs and feet. The ones she put in the belly felt warm, like she had laid a hot water bottle on my stomach, but she didn't, it was just the needles.

I was told to relax, and relax I did. The feeling was like my body was seeping into the material of the treatment table below me. Like i was liquid, and immobile, totally a puddle of myself. It was amazing. The warm feeling on my stomach continued to increase in intensity, it was probably the first time I've "relaxed" in 5 years.

Next came the "Massage" portion of the treatment. More like an extreme man-handling. The massage therapist raked through my hair, pulled it, picked my head up by my earholes, beat my head with some sort of stick, smacked my face, pulled on my eyes, it was EXTREME and AHHHMAZING. Seriously the best massage of all time.

After that I was done. and I HAVE NEVER FELT BETTER IN MY LIFE. I seriously felt like this little girl...

I was jumping for joy, screaming from the roof tops, shooting off fireworks, crying with GLEE!

I walked out of there with some herbal supplements (which make me feel super high) and a prescription to come back for more NEEDLY FUN next saturday! YAY!!