Chinese Medicine...Maybe Not For Me.

On Tuesday after work I braved yet another rainstorm to go to an acupuncturist.  Now, I've had acupuncture twice before and both times it was a very laid back affair.  When I was in law school, I had a good friend who was studying Eastern medicine and she put some needles in my face to help combat a particularly bad sinus infection.  A couple of years later, again for recurring sinus infections, I went to see a naturopath in Flagstaff who prescribed some herbs and did acupuncture on my face.  I felt very relaxed after both treatments and I'd like to believe that acupuncture played a part in resolving my sinus issues, but who knows.

Anyway, I'd been hearing that acupuncture can help fertility, so I made an appointment with an acupuncturist who had been highly rated on Yelp.  The practitioner I found, Lai Yat Ki, happens to be extremely traditional and has been practicing Chinese medicine since the early 70s.  In his no-frills office, two old Chinese ladies were hand-sorting a bunch of herbs for patients.  Every stick of furniture looked to be thrifted.  I think I even saw a calendar on the wall from 1972.  This office was far, far removed from any sort of hippie/yuppie acupuncture practice.

I took all of this in stride, and because I had been feeling kind of under the weather for a few days, I really wanted to stay to see if acupuncture could help my cold.  Once I was ushered into Lai's tiny office, I began to have a few doubts.  First, there was a major language barrier.  He *tried* to communicate with me, but was making all of his notes in Chinese on my chart.  He was horrified--and I mean HORRIFIED--to learn that I had been on a vegetarian diet since the first of the year.  "NO VEGETARIAN DIET!" became his mantra, and I heard it at least 20 times while I was there.  Apparently if you don't eat meat, you're depriving yourself of energy.  And if you're vegetarian while pregnant, you're just asking for trouble.  I wanted to debate that with him, but figured it would be pointless given the language barrier.

He was also unhappy to hear that I had gotten a flu shot.  This sparked a lengthy story about a patient of his who was 45, had been seeing him for fertility issues, did manage to get pregnant, but then miscarried after getting an H1N1 shot.  So he now had a second admonition for me:  "NO FLU SHOT!  NO H1N1!  BAD BAD BAD!"  This too he repeated over and over.

Lest you think he was shouting at me, I should say that Lai was extremely soft-spoken but placed great emphasis on his words when giving me these warnings.

After he finished lecturing me, he brought out a really cool model of the human body with all of the acupuncture/pressure points marked on it and showed me where he would place the needles.  He probably used about 20 needles altogether, putting them in my scalp, ears, forehead, nose, throat, chest, abdomen, and a couple at my ankles.  None of them hurt.  The strangest part was that he used some electrostimulation on a few of them, hooking wires to the needles on my face, throat, and abdomen.  I could feel the current coming through the metal and bouncing around.

It was actually quite relaxing.  Lai left me there for probably 30 minutes to rest with the needles.  It was dim, my eyes were closed, and all I could hear was the whooshing of cars on a wet street outside.  I felt pretty satisfied at this point, because I figured that even if acupuncture didn't actually have any major effect on my health, it would at least relax me.

This lasted until Lai returned, flooded the room with fluorescent light, and began chastising me again for being a vegetarian.  Then, he noticed that I was wearing a pair of dark purple studs in my ears.  He looked at those and wagged his finger at me.  "BAAAAD COLOR.  BLACK THE COLOR OF DEATH.  WOMAN NEVER WEAR BLACK."  When I told him they weren't black, it didn't appear to matter to him.  He had the same problem with an innocent Gap friendship bracelet I was wearing, which was also purple.  He said that women can only wear gold or silver.  "NO BLACK!"

So.  I don't think I'll be going back to this guy.  I have no doubt that he knows his stuff, and I do believe that there must be something to Eastern medicine given its longevity, but the way in which Lai conveys advice is not particularly pleasant.  Next time I want to relax, I think I'll book an hour-long massage so I can rest in peace.