I hate this

I thought I had found an acupuncturist, or a way of doing acupuncture, that worked for me. Sometimes it didn't help, or only helped for a few minutes, but other times it gave me more than a day of diminished pain. The time and money I'm spending on it is not trivial. It's not so much the half-hour I actually spend with the acupuncturist that makes me wonder if the benefits are really quite worth it...it's the time and energy of getting to Central Square, and the constraint on my schedule. It's challenging.

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When I plan for treatment of chronic health problems, and consider "Can I afford this treatment now?" I think about how much it will cost in money, and how much it costs up front in time. Sometimes I remember to think about travel time and energy, or how difficult it will be to schedule around work or other obligations. The thing that's hard to plan for is the risk of introducing new problems or of making the original problem worse. At least people are accustomed to talking about side effects for drugs (even if they presume they all go away when you stop taking the drug), but stuff like acupuncture or physical therapy or vitamins or chiropracty are all spoken of as having positive effects when they do anything at all.