Whither the Acupuncture?

Back on August 10, we wrote that I had begun getting acupuncture treatments for my insomnia.  At the time, I had completed one treatment, and believed I had gotten some improvement.  Not that I didn't wake up in the middle of the night as in the past, but that first night my Fitbit recorded significant improvement in sleep quality.  So I thought it was worth continuing to see what would happen.  (Some of you suggested this was a placebo effect, and -- I don't know -- maybe you're right.)  The research I cited in my August 10 post used six treatments as a benchmark for evaluation.  I thought that was a good goal for me.

Except that I need to be good at counting to make sure I get all six...

As of last Friday, I thought I had completed the six treatment goal.  Aside from the initial boost in sleep quality, I didn't feel that my sleep had improved.  I still woke up in the middle of the night, and my sleep scores were back to being pretty bad.  So I said that last Friday's treatment would be my last.  Except that was only five treatments, not six.  (I don't count good.)

My pattern is to get to sleep relatively easily, but then wake up at 1 or 2 a.m.  When I wake up, I REALLY wake up, and in an unpleasant way.  It's painful even just to lie there.  So, I would get up and take care of a few things, but I had always been able to go back to bed and get back to seep after being up for one and a half hours.  This might yield six and a half hours of sleep.  Not ideal, but I can live on that.  But for the past few months, getting back to sleep has been nearly impossible.  I would feel unwell during the day, and I thought I could just nap after noon.  Aside from a schedule that didn't accommodate naps well, I usually couldn't even get to sleep for the nap.  If I could get to sleep, it would be only for 15 minutes or so -- not making up for what I lost the night before.

After cancelling my subsequent appointments, it occurred to me that, after starting the acupuncture, I have recently actually been getting back to sleep at about 4 a.m. and been sleeping OK after that.  Waking up last night was quite unpleasant, but I went back to bed after an hour and a half, and my Fitbit says I actually got seven hours with a (for me) good sleep quality score.  This is a more sustained improvement -- it's been a long time since I've seen that.  So maybe I was premature on cancelling my appointments, and I should reschedule.  Stay tuned.