At last it's school holiday time, so you'd be forgiven for thinking that for a teacher such as myself early mornings are customarily snoozed through, but you'd be wrong. Just as in term time I'm up at anything from 4.30 a.m.-onwards. And that's not out of choice: I suffer from terrible morning back aches.
And before you ask, we've changed the mattress and re-orientated the bed according to best feng shui advice (from venerable feng shui master Brenda) to align with the chi -whichever way you understand it. Going to sleep for me is not a joy because I know I'll wake up in terrible back pain. And the lack of sleep/rest has had an increasingly adverse effect on my energy levels. Oh woe...
So, feeling that enough's enough, I popped into Sai Kung yesterday to see a traditional Chinesey doctor in the old town (at the Sai Kung Therapy Centre no less). I bemoaned my miserable lot to the poor doctor in his newly decorated clinic. He listened patiently, read the pulse on my left wrist (I think there are at least 8 different types, ya know) then my right wrist and asked a few of the usual questions about my lifestyle and work, etc. His suggested treatment was for me to have acupuncture, an acupressure massage and a course of herbal powders.
I'm not averse to unorthodox medical treatment. I once went to see a shaman in Causeway Bay -yes, a proper North American medicine man, but he blew his didgeridoo all over my body (stopping at various chakra points) and it took all my will power not to roll about on the floor laughing. I've got a lot of time for shaman and shamanistic approaches to life, but this didn't quite meet my expectations.
I've never held much with a reductionist approach towards medicine. We are undoubtedly more than the sum of our parts. Much wisdom has been overlooked by blind devotion to cherished orthodoxies. Western medicine undoubtedly is largely successful, but Chinese folk (and others across the globe) have been successfully going about their healing work for innumerable generations using that which is at hand -massage, acupuncture, herbs, etc. It has, therefore, been long about time I took steps down this path.
The acupuncture was interesting -quite nice to begin with. I didn't feel the needles enter my skin until the one over the left scapula region which didn't feel right. The ones in my lower back put my muscles into continuous spasm and a shooting heat sensation down my legs. I was relieved the needles were finally removed after the required 15 minutes of so. The acupressure massage was quite different to the usual Thai massage, less about relaxation than a bit of intense fore-arm back ironing. It hurt, but not as much as I experienced in a therapeutic series of massages after a touch of sciatica a few years ago (a great success, by the way, and highly recommended).
I left after about an hour feeling somewhat better, but also knowing that it may take days for a therapeutic massage to have the desired effects. He gave me sachets of herbals mixtures and an admonition to not drink cold things like beer or iced water. This morning, I slept (albeit fitfully) until about 7. Was it the good Italian wine drunk at the Ashley and Françoise Tranter's Friday night party? Was it the rest and peace of a day spent lolling about reading? Or... was it the mystic effects of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
Oh and by the way, the herbs taste absolutely revolting!
I meant pain free!
Posted by: Lesley Croft | Saturday, 09 July 2011 at 12:14 PM
Very interesting (say in appropriate accent).
After over two years of neck, shoulder, elbow and wrist pain and after a number of visits to a variety of clinics and doctors including physiotherapy, acupuncture, acupressure and Pilates I was eventually sent for an MRI where they could look at my soft tissue as well as bones. The problem was immediately spotted and then cured with surgery. If the scan had come sooner I can't help thinking I would have been paid free sooner.
Posted by: Lesley Croft | Saturday, 09 July 2011 at 12:14 PM