Pins and Needles

My marathon training for March 18, 2007 in Seoul was off to a rocky start back at the end of October; I had been suffering from a stubborn left knee for the last couple of weeks of our cross-country season. Runners do not take it sitting down when an injury arises and warrants rest and recuperation. However, I knew that if I wanted to be able to run with Jaci, my co-cross-country coach, and April and Virginia, two other colleagues that work as dorm RAs, I better allow my knee the chance to get well.

Then I remembered what I had been waiting to try since arriving in Korea: ACUPUNCTURE! Where better to take advantage of the centuries-old form of medicine right here in the area of the world where it originated!! (How blessed am I that three years had to pass before I would need a doctor!) One of my cross-country athletes, Dennis, who had also been suffering from a knee injury, visited an acupuncturist and, a week later, came back to train and eventually become our #4 runner! I decided I had better give the pins and needles a try.

I arrived at the clinic and was seated with as diagnosis form that included questions ranging from my age to my alcohol intake to various details regarding my "feces," as well as questions about my muscle, joint, and bone "symptoms." The nurse took my blood pressure then stood me on what was labeled a "body composition machine," on which I had to grip a silver-plated handle in each hand as the screen's bar graph slowly crept up to... well, some point that must have meant something to the nurse, but nothing to me. Next she sat me at another machine my feet again on metal plates, holding two metal rods with a strap around my forehead. I felt a bit like Frankenstein, only not strapped to a table (yet) and no metal rods poking out of my neck... was that a heavy-duty form of acupuncture the Doctor was trying on the big guy, come to think of it?? Hmmmm, let's nevermind that. Anyway, the machine began scribbling frantically on a chart with red, blue, and black pens, marking a picture of the human body and creating bar graphs on the sheet of paper. FASCINATING!

How pleasantly surprising it was to sit down with the doctor one-on-one for about 20 minutes while he asked ME questions about MY body rather than just looking at a chart or down my throat and in my ears for five minutes before diagnosing me and sending me out to pay the hefty bill (as occasionally happens in Western medicine these days). Granted, some of that time he spent sweating profusely as he struggled to recall the necessary English for his questions.

He next led me into a different room where I laid on a warm marble table/bed (actually, hard marble beds are quite popular here in Korea, and people spend a lot of money for the "luxury"). The doctor placed a heating pad on the stubborn left knee before proceeding to quickly stab six small embroidery-size needles into me - right palm, wrist, thumb, inner elbow, right foot, and lower right shin. He vigorously twisted a few of them as if tuning an instrument. After the subtle pinch, I felt nothing. He also focused a heating lamp down over my feet as if they were a burger and fries up for an order.

As I laid still for twenty minutes, I couldn't help but marvel at the age-old treatment. How did he know EXACTLY where to position the needles? How does that particular place on my palm, leg, or elbow affect my heel or knee? And how did the pioneers of this ancient medicine discover it? Thousands of years have passed since someone in the old Asian countryside, at a loss for any other cure, decided that perhaps a swift poke, or series thereof, would at least distract the patient from the original pain. However in doing that, he hit the jackpot - or pressure point - and was healed.

My attention was unpleasantly snapped back to the present by the modern Western music playing above me; how can one consider the incredulity of the mysterious "needlework" with Jamiroquai's 90's hit "Virtual Insanity" rudely interrupting my reverie among the scholars and early Chinese doctors??

The last three treatments included a two pulsating patches that tried to jumpstart my knee, a quick chiropractic session, and a waterbed massage.

For two hours I underwent these various treatments and paid a trand total of $10. CRAZY! Pennies in comparison to the cost of 5 minutes with the chiropractor in the States!

After a week and a half that totaled about 5 visits, my knee pain disappeared... of course, I haven't had the chance to go back in the past two weeks, and my knee's stubbornness has returned, which means that I must return to ancient China... in my mind, at least, while I lay upon the nice warm, marble bed!

EVERYONE GO TRY ACUPUNCTURE! If you keep your eyes closed, you'll forget that there are needles dangling from just beneath your skin! :)