医生, take one.

well hello, lovelies.
what can this be, but two updates in as many days? my goodness. jessie must have too much time on her hands.

what insights will be unfurled in this post? what secrets of the universe probed? more pointedly, have these probes been sanitized?

I have to admit that I have nothing off the top of my head to post about, save that today I went to the doctor. I guess that works.

Attention! This post is now aimed towards sharing the experience of visiting a traditional chinese medicine doctor in china. I'm also going to mention that if Earth Wind and Fire had been smitten with the 24th night of September instead of the 21st night, I wouldn't have reminded everytime it plays that it narrowly misses my birthday. Man, how cool would it be to have that song coincide with your birthday? I have these thoughts EVERYTIME the song comes on. It kind of ruins it. Just a little.

That is so, so beside my point.

Today I headed over to the doctor for a little check up. My roommate Scott has an awesome doctor situated over by the JingSong subway stop, a hop skip and cab ride from the GuoMao stop in CBD. I mention the GuoMao stop cause it also happens to be beside my favorite of favorite vegan restaurants in Beijing, run by my friend Li. We swung by the Vegan Cafe and nabbed some delicacies of the cruelty free persuasion.

When you pull up to this clinic, it's in the bottom floor of a building around the corner from one of the largest libraries in Beijing (a whole floor of English language books! Goody!!). Walk straight down the corridor and you hit double doors leading into a very herb-y smelling waiting room. The lovely bit about this particular doctor is that his English is very good, and the clinic serves the Japanese speaking community as well as the Chinese and English. My particular visit was comprised of two main sections- first diagnosis and then treatment. I went into a cool back room where my doctor first asked some preliminary questions- medical history, whyd you come in today, hows your diet, any appendages burst into flame lately, etc etc. Then, to continue the diagnosis section of our visit, i had my tongue examined and lay (lied? layed?) down on a low examining table from which position the doctor took my pulse, felt my glands, and felt various assorted important places on my stomache and calves. Then he did a very interested and at this point unexplained chain reaction type thing where he had an assistant hold my hand while he grasped the arm of the assistant, and (supposedly) at some unintentional change in my hand her arm would twitch and then his arm would jump. i really have no idea what this was about. i need to ask.

maybe she just wanted to hold my hand.

anyway. this was the end of my diagnosis section. at this point i was handed over to the herbalist (the doctor who did my diagnosis was a muscoskeletal specialist), who was briefed by my other doctor and did her own short diagnosis using the meridian points in my hands a feet. Chinese Medicine is concerned, in large part, with the energies flowing through your body. Meridians are the main channels that these energies flow through, and main Meridian channels cane be found in your hands a feet. The way a Meridian check goes is, you supply your hands and feet (one at a time)to the doctor, who uses and electrical gauge (which is slowly pressed into each meridian's main point) to see how strong or weak the electrical charge is coming out of each point. This machine is hooked up to the computer which registers the electrical reactions as figures that then relate to your physical wellness (or illness) and even your family's medical history.

What, you want to know what mine said? Sigh. Well, she identified that my family has a history of hormone problems (such things as breast cancer, uterine cancer, etc), which is true of not only me, but i also think of most women at this point in time. The diagnosis also identified energy deficiency that relate to organs i've had trouble with in the past, and a few choice tidbits that I didn't entirely agree with. Apparently I have emotional problems. I'm really not sure I trust that particular diagnosis farther than I could throw the machine. Anyway.

After these things, she started treatments. this included but was not limited to some slight acupuncture and a little moxibustion. i'm sure most of us are familiar with acupuncture, but moxibustion is where small herbal compresses that very much resemble mini marshmellows are lit on fire and placed on the end of your acupuncture needles. you will feel like some kind of flesh/herb/steel specialty dessert while this occurs. the smoke from the herbs affects the energies that are being furthered stimulated by the needles, and also fills the room in some kind of smoke tastic cleansing type lung related thing.

I also got a bag full of herbs to be prepared as a tea every morning and taken morning and night for the next week. then i go back next week.

hopefully i'll be in beijing, but i think i'll probably be in shanghai. sigh.

any questions?

love you all,
jessie