This year I decided to give Traditional Chinese Medicine a proper go, where I wouldn’t give up after 3 or 4 sessions, because it was expensive and it didn’t make feel noticeably different in the short term (which is what I’ve done in the past). I accepted that it made sense that whatever is wrong with my body might take a more long-term, sustained approach to cure or improve.
I started attending appointments in January. Initially they were once a fortnight, then she said I could reduce that to once a month. The practitioner worked out of a popular, local integrated medicine clinic, which is less than 10 minute drive away from my home, and has close, easy parking and level access - important accessibility factors for me. She was in high demand, hard to get appointments with, and an authentic, older Chinese lady.
My strategy was: no thinking, no questioning, no researching (and therefore doubting) her methods, just do what she tells me for at least 6 months.
She diagnosed me each time by feeling my pulse for a few seconds. She gave me almost hour-long acupuncture sessions, with more than 20 needles. She prescribed expensive herbs and other supplements. These included multiple b12 injections, and PEA, an anti inflammatory supplement, along with some Chinese herbs that didn’t taste pleasant but weren’t overly disgusting either. Sometimes at the end of the treatment she gave me a painful little torture massage on various pressure points, and she also tried a bit of cupping, which I didn’t much enjoy. She was not very easy to talk to, and didn’t listen very well, but was quite nice, made cheerful small talk, and I assumed she was getting all the information that she needed from my pulse.
Initially she talked about getting me fully better, saying things like “take this much until you are 50% better, then you can try taking less”. As a jaded patient, diagnosed with what is officially recognized as an incurable illness, for which many people have tried TCM before, I nodded and smiled politely and thought “well that’d be nice, and I guess you never know”, but did not put much emotional hope on her optimistic predictions. I thought “geez, if this can get me 5% better I’d be happy with that”. (My health was below the miserable line at that point).
My body liked the acupuncture. I could feel myself instantly relax, and feel more balanced. I sometimes got stomach gurgles and tingles. (I think that indicated the parasympathetic nervous system was kicking in). But sadly I don’t think it had much of a positive effect on me for more than a few hours, or a day afterwards. (But at least it didn’t have a negative effect, like some other treatments I have tried, and put up with because I hoped it would have a longer term positive effect.)
She also prescribed a low histamine diet, which is a very boring diet. I did not follow it perfectly, but she said being 80% compliant was ok. So, especially for the first few months, I’ve ate far less histamine-containing and inducing foods than I ever had before, removing things like soy milk, spices, bananas, avocados, citrus, tomatoes, ferments and nuts from my diet, and I always froze rather than refrigerated meat. This diet was one thing I did research and felt skeptical about, as I don’t fit any of the symptoms of histamine intolerance except for “fatigue” of course, which is a symptom of everything. I did have a big inflamed bee-sting when I first saw her, and I think this was partly why she decided I should follow this diet. Over time I became lazier with the diet (especially with tomatoes, cheese, chocolate, nuts and sauerkraut), but I did give it a good crack earlier on.
Why was I spending my time, energy and money trying something that has never been shown to cure me/cfs before? In Jacinta Parson’s book “Unseen”, she talks of the unspoken “contract” that chronically ill and disabled people have with society, to keep trying to get better, rather than just accept and live with our level of impairment. I understand this can be quite offensive to some, especially when paired with unsolicited advice about yoga and kale. And its true that I do feel some pressure to demonstrate to the world that I eat well, meditate and regularly try various treatments, to prove that my inability to recover is not my fault. But for me, it’s not just peer pressure. I really, really want to get better for myself - even if it’s just 1%, just to get me above the miserable line. And of all the woo-woo treatments, TCM has been around for the longest time, is individualized, and is relatively highly regarded. I generally apply a plausibility to cost matrix to my treatment experiments.
\10 months later, I was better than I was before I started seeing her. But it hadn’t been a continuously upward trajectory. I was back above the miserable line by April, but not much changed in my health after then. And I’ve been much better before during my whole “me/cfs journey”, without any TCM, (but for what reason, I do not know. It might be the passage of Jupiter, as my friend Millie says, tongue in cheek).
I spent almost $2000 on the experiment. I felt neutral about continuing apart from the cost. “Maybe I’m just near a break through, I can’t give up now”, I thought. Then I realized that is the mindset of somebody playing the poker machines, and I had already continued the experiment for four months longer than planned. I could easily spend that money on something like massages, or delicious stinky cheese. Neither will never promise to cure me, but I’m guaranteed to enjoy them more than acupuncture and no-flavour diets. Or save the money in case a real, proven cure comes along one day and is not covered by medicare. Or donate it to research to bring that potential treatment closer.
In the end, my decision to end the experiment was made for me, because the practitioner left the clinic due to the vaccine mandates. And anyway, I think I gave it a good enough crack. I’m not sure what’s next, but I will probably keep trying things here and there, until there is nothing feasible left.
Here's me trying to do a shrug emoji selfy 🤷♀️🤷♀️🤷♀️
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