TCM

Another new experience for me to write about.  Recently I had a follow up visit to a hospital.  This hospital is part of the S.O.S. international hospitals.  Simply put it is a hospital that us xpats will use without feeling like we are totally in a different country.
So Friday was a follow up to have fasting ultra-sound done on my upper stomach.  I had experienced some heavy pain like a cramp or stitch on multiple occasions and figured it needed looking at.  Bottom line is the ultra-sound went fine, the technician saw nothing out of the ordinary with any of my internal organs.  So all good.

So now for the new experience.  Since I was at the hospital and had some time, I asked if they had a doctor or physical therapist that was available to check out my lower back?  I seemed to have pinched something or tweaked a muscle maybe will over-doing a bike ride last week.  It had gotten extremely painful and therefore since I was at a doctor's office....Well it turns out the only doctor that was in and available was a TCM Doctor (Traditional Chinese Medicine).  I said what the heck, if she can heal the back then good deal.
The exam started with questions about the pain, then to a look at my tongue (basically same as most doctors so far).  From there she spent probably 5-7 minutes checking out my hands, although I never found out what she was looking at them for.
Now without even showing what was causing the pain she had me get up on the exam table face down.  It was here that the acupuncture needles went in!  I didn't realize that was going to happen so it was quite a shock.  She probably put in 8-10 of them.  Honestly they must have been super small as I really didn't feel anything.  Then she turned on some sort of heat lamp and pointed it on my back and told me to rest for 20-25 min.  When that time was up, out came the needles.
She then said she would now do the cupping.  I wasn't so sure about this one as I have heard it can be very painful, almost like your skin melting off.  But I finally said yes.  She only put two of the cups on - one on my lower back right in the middle and one on my right hamstring.  Here is an image of what the cupping looks like.  It's basically a suction cup that pulls up your skin...

You can literally see on this the skin getting pulled all the way into the cup.  The feeling for me was more of pressure than anything else and just a weird sensation all in all.  These stayed on for about 10-15 min I think.  The normal result is bruising almost like a hickey if you will.  Here is an image of what it can often look like...

Thankfully neither of mine produced much of a bruise at all.  Not sure if that was of the location they were placed or because there were only two.
After this was complete it felt like the doctor ran some sort of stone over my back up and down over and over to get the "chi" flowing in the right direction or something like that.
Then it was done.  I stood up and immediately noticed a difference!  My back felt great.  There was still some pain but probably 90% of it was gone.  The doctor requested one more follow up but so far I haven't done it simply because I couldn't get an appointment when I had time.  But given the success I'm sure I will do the TCM route again in the future.  Pretty cool.