Thais have a particular difficultly in pronouncing L’s and R’s together. My name at the clinic has become smiling Wary. Doctor Rungrat has given this new nickname to me, for I am the man that hides his pain and smiles to everyone. I smile because I am truly happy. The sun shines endlessly, the people laugh in abundance and everything about Chiang Mai is healthy. Unlike Costa Rica where eco-travel is marketed to entice American tourists, in Thailand the food is organic and prepared with love, [the topic of food will be saved for an individual blog in the near future], and the protection of the environment comes as natural as removing one’s shoes before entering a house. It is second nature to the inhabitants and any discussion concerning it would simply be redundant. People who smile and laugh will never wage war – they simply have no time for it. It is those that take themselves too seriously that we must be watchful; a civilization that is serious believes the world revolves around their ideology.
I lay on my side in pain with needles, wires, and current running through my body and eventually drift off to a light sleep. I awake to something new the smell of my burning flesh? There is no pain just this unusual odor, one that I have never experienced before. It’s an herb of some sort, not unpleasant, but not inviting either. I later find out that my treatment today includes moxibustion.1
The clinic is slow today and Dr. Rungrat takes extra time with me. I explain that after the second treatment yesterday I felt better, but only for a short time. It was like an excellent massage, you feel good for a couple of hours and then the sore muscles knot back into the same cramping tightness they were in before the message. In my case the acupuncture relieved thirty percent of the pain but within a couple of hours I was in worse pain that before the treatment began. She explained that this was not atypical. In many cases patients will feel worse directly after a treatment with no relief at all.
She continued with an explanation of how acupuncture works. It is a long term healing process. The nerve is damaged and thereby sending miss signals to the muscles causing cramps, and notes of pain to the brain. The nerves are pathways not unlike a vein or artery and portions of these pathways have collapsed or deteriorated causing the signals to become distorted. The needles and electric simulation will bring additional oxygen to the nerves and the tissue around the nerves so they may heal. In western medicine doctors believe that once a nerve is destroyed it will never repair itself, eastern medicine begs to differ.
At the moment I can’t tell if my sciatica is killing me because of a pinched or damaged nerve or because of the needles that were just removed. In spite of it all, I’ll write away, poolside, eating lunch and tell myself, I’ll be here for another two weeks my mind is as open as the blackland prairies of central Texas. Why not, I say to myself, enjoy the home made wide egg noodles stir fried with carrots, Chinese spinach, mushrooms, chicken and curry. Drink the natural fruit shakes and keep smiling -- Wary.
1. Practitioners use moxa to warm regions and acupuncture points with the intention of stimulating circulation through the points and inducing a smoother flow of blood and qi. Medical historians believe that moxibustion pre-dated acupuncture, and needling came to supplement moxa after the 2nd century BC. Different schools of acupuncture use moxa in varying degrees. For example, a 5-elements acupuncturist will use moxa directly on the skin, whilst a TCM-style practitioner will use rolls of moxa and hold them over the point treated. It can also be burnt atop a fine slice of ginger root to prevent scarring. Practitioners consider moxibustion to be especially effective in the treatment of chronic problems, "deficient conditions" (weakness), and gerontology. Bian Que (fl. circa 500 BC), one of the most famous semi-legendary doctors of Chinese antiquity and the first specialist in moxibustion, discussed the benefits of moxa over acupuncture in his classic work. He asserted that moxa could add new energy to the body and could treat both excess and deficient conditions. On the other hand, he advised against the use of acupuncture in an already deficient (weak) patient, on the grounds that needle manipulation would leak too much energy.
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