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I had an interesting, but slightly disappointing, cross-cultural experience yesterday. Two of my students from last semester persuaded me to go to a Chinese traditional doctor - a herbalist. I explained my reluctance to take medicine that I could not look up the side effects to and they promised to thoroughly explain to the doctor why I needed to be so careful. They are worried because I have so much trouble walking. I have "severe" (western doctor's term) degenerative disk disease with all sorts of other spinal problems listed along with that. So I fall frequently and walk like a very old woman at times. When that is coupled with sob when walking so that I gasp between each word when I walk and talk at the same time (and I am not one to miss an opportunity to talk 
), the students had really gotten worried about me. So, they said she would just treat my back and see if she thought acupuncture would help.
Well, first of all, I liked her a lot. She has a kind and caring manner and smiles constantly. She was very calm and yet very sure of herself. I don't know whether most Americans know how diagnosis is made in traditional Chinese medicine, but it is made primarily by taking the pulses in each arm and comparing them. So, other than looking briefly at my tongue and running her hand down my spine after she had already made her diagnosis, that is all she did - took my right wrist pulse and my left wrist pulse.
I guess somehow I thought she would come up with some new suggestion which would give me great hope, even though I really do not put a lot of confidence in this approach. But she did not. She told me that I needed to get a pacemaker as soon as possible - and did not seem any more impressed by my reasons for waiting until July than the docs in the US. She also told me that my back condition was very severe. I was amazed because I had not told her that the doctors in the US had used that word. She said that there was nothing that could be done to cure my back because I had waited too many years to get help and it was past helping. That is also very similar to what the orthopedic surgeon I saw in the US in February said. She said she could give me medicine that might keep it from getting worse and that she could give me a very low dose of a herb that might relieve some of my heart symptoms. Apparently, she also said something to the three students who went with me to translate to the effect that I was very (here the students could not think of a word to translate what she said when they told me later, so I guessed the word "stubborn." Apparently it was along the lines of the idea that I did not give into pain easily, so I said stubborn was good enough.)
I agreed to try the herbs she recommended when she assured me that neither was a stimulant. The mother of one of the workers in the International Office works at the Beijing Heart Hospital, so he called a doctor there to make sure that the herbs would do no harm. They said they were not stimulants and that they doubted that they would help at this point, but that they should not harm me. So, I am now taking two unknown (to me) Chinese herbs and we'll see what happens.
Please understand that I am not moping and am generally laughing and smiling and making fun of myself while I stumble around. I have always been a klutz, so this is not really anything new. But it was a bit of a shock to realize that Chinese medicine reached the same conclusions as western medicine.
Rhoda
), the students had really gotten worried about me. So, they said she would just treat my back and see if she thought acupuncture would help. Well, first of all, I liked her a lot. She has a kind and caring manner and smiles constantly. She was very calm and yet very sure of herself. I don't know whether most Americans know how diagnosis is made in traditional Chinese medicine, but it is made primarily by taking the pulses in each arm and comparing them. So, other than looking briefly at my tongue and running her hand down my spine after she had already made her diagnosis, that is all she did - took my right wrist pulse and my left wrist pulse.
I guess somehow I thought she would come up with some new suggestion which would give me great hope, even though I really do not put a lot of confidence in this approach. But she did not. She told me that I needed to get a pacemaker as soon as possible - and did not seem any more impressed by my reasons for waiting until July than the docs in the US. She also told me that my back condition was very severe. I was amazed because I had not told her that the doctors in the US had used that word. She said that there was nothing that could be done to cure my back because I had waited too many years to get help and it was past helping. That is also very similar to what the orthopedic surgeon I saw in the US in February said. She said she could give me medicine that might keep it from getting worse and that she could give me a very low dose of a herb that might relieve some of my heart symptoms. Apparently, she also said something to the three students who went with me to translate to the effect that I was very (here the students could not think of a word to translate what she said when they told me later, so I guessed the word "stubborn." Apparently it was along the lines of the idea that I did not give into pain easily, so I said stubborn was good enough.)
I agreed to try the herbs she recommended when she assured me that neither was a stimulant. The mother of one of the workers in the International Office works at the Beijing Heart Hospital, so he called a doctor there to make sure that the herbs would do no harm. They said they were not stimulants and that they doubted that they would help at this point, but that they should not harm me. So, I am now taking two unknown (to me) Chinese herbs and we'll see what happens.
Please understand that I am not moping and am generally laughing and smiling and making fun of myself while I stumble around. I have always been a klutz, so this is not really anything new. But it was a bit of a shock to realize that Chinese medicine reached the same conclusions as western medicine.
Rhoda
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