Acupuncture

Women are generally very self conscious about their weight. Sometimes they are willing to subject them selves to very strange programs to remove that extra pound. This story relates my experience with one of those weird programs.

Acupuncture

 

In the spring of 1976, we were living in Fritch, Texas. My wife Pam, our sister in law Brenda, and my sister JerrylDine had been trying to find a weight reducing program that they could try together. During their search that had found information about an acupuncture doctor that claimed he could make the pounds melt off without any feeling hunger with an acupuncture technique. There was apparently hundreds of women that would testify that it actually worked for them. They called the doctor located in Wichita, Kansas, and he told them that he put a staple in a special place on each of the ears and it would curb their appetite and they would loose weight until they decided to remove the staples. They were convinced and they came to me to and asked me to drive them to Wichita since they weren’t supposed to drive for a while after they had the staples put in. They told me the story and I told them they were crazy with the heat. Eventually, they beat me down and I ended driving them 335 miles to Wichita. They had their staples put in for $200 apiece, and I drove 335 miles back home. They were supposed to pull on their ear if they started feeling hungry. In a couple of weeks I asked Pam if the staples were curbing her appetite and she said she thought it was. I thought to myself…..if I had traveled 670 miles and paid $200 to have my ears stapled, and tugged on my ear in public everyday, to save face, I sure wouldn’t admit that it wasn’t working. Maybe this was the gimmick that allowed past participants to lose weight…….?

After a month, my sister JerrylDine’s ears became infected and her husband Pete pulled her staples out with a pair of long nosed pliers. Pam got worried and went to the doctor and had hers removed. As I recall, Brenda followed suit and had hers removed also. And it was over. I believe in the month they were on the acupuncture program they lost about 5 pounds apiece. When it was over, I still thought they were crazy with the heat. They also had looked rather foolish tugging on their ears for a month. The program was later referred to as the Ear Staple Craze. I believe a few doctors got very rich with this program.

The Ear Staple Craze, Did it really work?