Pain, Pain, Go Away!

When you keep coming back to your doctor, complaining about the same thing over and over; and you're getting tired of prescriptions that don't seem to work anymore, then it's probably time to seek for an alternative.


To be fair to Dr. L, he gives me adequate attention and he knows my entire medical history by heart. But given the nature of work that I do (ok, mom... and my alcohol intake. sheesh!), my body doesn't respond to pain relievers and anti-inflammatories anymore. Consequently, my trips to his clinic has already become futile.

So today, after getting sent home from work on the account of my inability to perform because my old knee injury acted up again, I decided to give Traditional Chinese Medicine a try.

Acupuncture.

I enterd Dr. Frankie's clinic and instantly, he knew what was wrong with me. He asked me to lie on his treatment bed and pinched that part of my knee where all the pain was coming from. "This is it, right?" he asked proudly, as if he were some oracle whose prediction took place right before his very eyes.

"Yes," I answered in excruciating pain.

"Don't worry, this will be very easy to remedy." He was sure. He was very, very sure. He then left me and went into the adjacent room. He came back in less than two minutes with his gadgets. He started feeling my knees again, mapping out where he would stick the needles.

I started getting nervous. I was wondering how it would feel. With as much pride and dignity as I could muster, I asked him, "Doc, can you give me a sed--- Ouch! Shit!" He stuck the first needle before I could even say "sedative".

"First time, huh? Well, it will sting a little but it's tolerable." His warning, a little too late.

The five needles that followed didn't hurt as the first. In fact, maybe two of them, I didn't feel at all. Then he instructed me to stay put and not move. He turned on the heating devide that he placed just a few inches above my knee. "Call me if it gets too hot,"he said. Then he left.

I wanted to move the pillow under my head a few inches to the left so I tried to get up a little. Ok, that's a lie. I tried to sit up so I could take a picture of my knee. I have only lifted my head half a foot when I felt a tingle in my spine and my whole leg cramp up. Uh-oh! Not good. Lesson: Listen when your doctor says "stay put" and "don't move". Got the message! Won't happen again, I promise.

Fifteen minutes after he turned the heat on, he came back and removed the needles. But before he did so, I asked him to take my photo.

And like magic, the pain disappeared. Just like that.