Danny ChaiI’m browsing the web and blogging outside, at around 11:24 PM. It’s still too hot to be in the house. This heat is ridiculous.
I think I mentioned this in my pics, but I tried out acupuncture recently. I’ve been grinding my teeth all my life. I’m pretty sure it’s genetic – my mom grinds her teeth, and I’ve heard Abby grinding her teeth in her crib also. They say it’s a symptom of stress, but I mean, what kind of stress does a 1 or 2 year old have? I’ve tried all the things they’ve suggested, from praying, to meditation, to just telling myself before I sleep “do not grind your teeth” (honest to God, this is something people say works); nothing’s worked. The NTI device I’ve been using for the past few years has worked wonders for the actual teeth grinding, but not the jaw pressure, and I still occasionally have headaches from the clenching at night.
So I tried acupuncture, which is also supposed to help, because why not. I’m sure many people have done it, but here’s my experience. It’s weird. Starts off normally enough, as they take your blood pressure, just like at a Western hospital. But then they start feeling my pulse. Not checking the rate, but feeling it, describing it in terms like “wiry” and “slippery.” Kisoo once told me how his dad went to some Eastern doctor and he did the same thing and immediately detected a medical condition that he did, in fact, have. In any case, it’s a little odd. Odder still, they kept asking me to stick my tongue out. I don’t know what they were looking for exactly, but they made me do it like 6 times during my first visit.
They asked me why I’m there, then the doctor recommends the points to do, throwing out things like “Liver 4, 6, and 7… Spleen 2”. I can’t say his tone of voice inspired a lot of confidence. For some, he was like, “and, I don’t know, why not Stomach 13”. Why not indeed.
The actual needles they did in my head, hands, and feet. For some nonsensical reason, I wasn’t expecting it to hurt, but it did. Not like a paper cut pain, at least when they did it right, but a weirder sensation, honestly, like they hit a nerve. Supposedly that’s good, it means they hit the chi. Whatever.
Then they leave me on the table with the needles in for a half hour. I have this weird thing where I get itchy at nearly any inopportune time. Like when I play Word Challenge, I have an overwhelming need to itch all over my body while typing. Same thing with lying there with the needles in, but I can’t move to itch it. Excruciating.
Like I said, it hasn’t made much difference that I can tell. They did, however, give me some Chinese herbal medicine, and I’m a little more hopeful about that, primarily because of a really interesting conversation I had with one of the interns during my last visit, which was probably the best part of the experience.
The guy in question was Korean. When we got a chance to talk, and he found out I was Korean, he asked if I went to church. When I said yes, he said, “good”. That was really relieving. Just, you know, there’s some weirdness in this whole Eastern medicine thing with stuff like the chi and all. It was just a little reassuring that at least this guy, an apparently devout Christian, thought it was OK.
So in his opinion, he didn’t think the acupuncture would help much, because my condition was chronic, something I’d been doing all my life, and acupuncture apparently isn’t as good for that. He did think Chinese herbal medicine would help. I expressed some reservations (apart from the fact that it tastes utterly disgusting), for example that I heard that too much of it can be bad for the kidneys.
His response was really interesting, and, I think, insightful. He said that actually, this is one area in which Eastern medicine’s approach is much better than Western medicine – they look at a holistic level and strive for balance. In Western medicine, they tend to look only at the immediate symptoms. Once that’s addressed, the treatment often leads to problems elsewhere, and they move on to that. I thought that was interesting. I personally believe Western medicine is more effective, but I do think the microvision criticism is a legitimate one, and one doctors also realize. Like the most recent Newsweek mentions how the treatment of childhood leukemia often leads to depression and other emotional and physical issues later in life, and that medicine doesn’t address this enough, looking only at managing the cancer. His point was, they wouldn’t give something that helps the grinding but hurts the kidneys, because their entire approach is always holistic.
He also mentioned something interesting, another way in which he thought Eastern medicine had an advantage on Western medicine. In Western medicine, when they’re testing drugs, before they’re approved, the testing is primarily done on animals. In China, for thousands of years, they had human slaves, on whom the kings had no qualms about doing experimentation. So while with many Western drugs they can only guess the long term effects, with Chinese medicine, they know exactly what it will do to the human body, because they tested everything on humans, for better or for worse. He wasn’t saying it was right, but it is what it is. And it’s kind of a compelling point.
Anyway, he also noted that my limbs were cold (which is another lifelong problem I’ve had) and recommended that I avoid “cold” foods and eat more “hot” foods, which is another Chinese thing that has nothing to do with temperature. Apparently some foods are inherently cold and others hot. And apparently a lot of the foods I’ve been eating for health reasons (a bunch of fruits, yogurt, seafood, green tea – “especially” green tea) are cold, yin foods. He didn’t have a list with him, but when I browse lists online (like this one) I swear all the hot yang foods are just bad foods, like eggs, meat, and fat. But hey, I’ll try anything, and I’ve been making a concerted effort to eat more yang foods. Again, no real effect, other than a possible coronary someday from all the eggs and meat.