TRIED & TRUE : Acupuncture Deflates Illusions About Vanity

The moment of truth came with the realization that there were six needles protruding from the top of my head. As the tingling receded, pulling me into a kind of dreamy lethargy, I began to reflect on the road that had brought me to this time and place wherein my scalp had become something of a human pin cushion.

The truth is, vanity had never been one of my major vices.

I have others, to be sure. I’m late to almost everything. At restaurants I have trouble staying away from the apple pie a la mode . And on occasion I’ve been known to spend just a bit more money than I have in the bank. Several years ago, however, something began happening to me that was to sorely test my oh-so-cool nonchalance regarding my appearance. I started going bald.

At first it looked like just a smidgen; a receding hairline here, a slight thinning there. I was able to continue living a fairly normal life, laughing the whole thing off as early indications of a youth well spent.

Periodically I would drag out pictures of myself as a 20-year-old hippy in the 1960s with an enviable mop of hair. And I secretly took great pleasure in magazine articles indicating that some of the same people who had made long hair hip back then were now making a fashion statement by shaving it all off a la Montel Williams.

Then reality began to intrude.

The thinning process continued to the point where I could no longer describe myself as “balding” without being painfully aware that to do so bordered on bald understatement.

I began overhearing jokes mentioning baldies and fatties in the same breath. And to make matters worse, I began seeing my father staring back at me from the mirror.

That’s when someone told me that acupuncture might help.

The principle is simple, really. Inheritors of an ancient Chinese healing art that traces its roots back more than 2,500 years, modern acupuncturists view the body as a bioelectric system with 14 meridians, or energy channels, running through it.

Pain and illness, they say, is caused by disruptions of the energy flow along those meridians, which contain 361 acupuncture points. By using needles to stimulate those points along the channels, practitioners maintain, they can balance a person’s energy flow and thus restore good health.

Conditions that can be helped through acupuncture, its proponents claim, include back, shoulder and knee pains; headaches; multiple sclerosis; chronic fatigue syndrome; stress, and AIDS.

And, occasionally, even balding .

So I made an appointment at South Baylo University in Garden Grove, Orange County’s only certified college for acupuncturists, where, for about $20 for an hourlong session (a good deal less than the going commercial rate of $50 to $80), student pin-pushers will attempt to cure what ails you--even if it’s your scalp.

The first step was an interview with Dr. Yu You, the school’s clinical supervisor, who served as chief cardiologist at a hospital in Shanghai before coming to the United States in 1985 and who has been performing acupuncture for many years.

“They say that people who think a lot go bald,” she informed me almost immediately with the barest hint of a smile. “In Oriental medicine, we consider baldness a result of kidney deficiency.”

Consequently, treatment focuses on the kidneys, but not before the administration of some general lifestyle advice. Cut down on greasy food, You admonished me. Get plenty of vitamin B. And go to bed early, allowing for at least eight hours of sleep each night.

Then she got into the puncture process. What I would need, the acupuncturist informed me, was 18 needles: six in my bald crown to battle insomnia and raise my level of Yang; two in each arm for general balance, and four in each leg to strengthen the kidneys and increase my level of energy.

“Have you ever treated baldness this way before?” I asked my would-be healer. Well yes, she told me without hesitation. Three times. Though not, she admitted, with much success.

But it had been known to work in the past, she said. And if I was a willing guinea pig, why, she’d be happy to try it on me .

Before sticking the needles in, she swabbed each target point with a bit of alcohol. The action created a pleasant, refreshing sort of sensation, especially on the top of my head. Then she aimed each tiny sword with the precision of a tattoo artist and gently tapped it in.

It was during this period that I experienced the only pain of the session: a slight prick as each pin went in, followed by a feeling of pressure and dim puffiness. Then, miraculously, nothing. No pain. No irritation. Not even a pinch.

Feeling like a man in a circus show, I spent 15 minutes lying perfectly still with 18 pins in me while Dr. You attended to other business.

Silently I tried to visualize all those meridians running through my body. All I could conjure up, however, was a confused matrix of lines.

The strange thing was that, aside from the acute fear of inadvertently bending my elbows or rolling over and causing a horrible accident, I felt perfectly relaxed. I think I even dozed off a while.

Suddenly, interrupting my dreamlike state, the acupuncturist returned and, without further ado, removed every needle.

They didn’t hurt going out even the little bit that they’d hurt sliding in. And when it was all over, I felt a strange buoyancy, a sort of cosmic lightheadedness and rush of energy that left me vibrating.

Yet when I looked in the mirror I saw no new hair.

Nothing. Nada . Not even one strand that I hadn’t come in with, as far as I could determine.

The doctor told me not to worry.

Acupuncture seldom works immediately, she said. Three months of weekly treatments and I might--repeat might --see some results. Then she gave me a bottle of herbs--Golden Beard, she said it was called; a concoction resembling salt and pepper, several daily teaspoons of which would aid in the growth process.

*

It wasn’t until about a week later that the strangeness occurred.

I was sitting on the couch, arm wrestling my 9-year-old daughter, when suddenly, unprompted (I swear this happened), she stopped and stared at my head. “Daddy,” she said sweetly, “I think you’re growing hair.”

I was stunned.

I rushed into the bathroom and grabbed a mirror to examine the top of my head. At first I couldn’t see anything. But as I watched, squinting my eyes, I thought I began to detect some new fuzz. Maybe , I thought, just maybe .

I spent the next week approaching virtually every friend and acquaintance I ran into with a single question, asked as I bowed low enough for their eyes to gaze upon my scalp: Was it possible that I was growing new hair?

Most said no. Only my daughter, it seemed, could see it.

Yet I have decided to believe her.

OK, so hope springs eternal.

My second treatment comes up soon.