Monday, August 13, 2007

TCM

It's been three days since i stopped taking my diabetic medication. I had gone to a TCM doctor in Kota Damansara, a Dr. John Low, who had been trained in Beijing and had proven cases of curing diabetes. He didn't seem to think my case was problematic at all. The possibility of not having to take my medication and curing my diabetes was something I hadn't thought of at all. Some of my friends are very skeptical but for me, I had nothing to lose. I would track my sugar level carefully over the treatment period to make sure I wasn't going out of control.

So far so good.

The first day, I had a spinal realignment and acupuncture on my leg for gall bladder and appendicitis inflammation. Apparently spinal misalignment is a major cause of many ailments because the central nervous channel is blocked, and organs start to malfunction. He pressed several points on the back of my knees and asked how painful it was, on a scale of 1-10. Mostly it was 6-9! After realigning my spine, he pressed on the same points again and strangely enough, there was no pain. Similarly, he pressed several points on my abdomen and asked if it was painful. Yes it was! He then said my gall bladder and appendix was inflamed. After he put in the five needles, he pressed on the same points and it didn't hurt. Magic!

I felt very tired after the treatment though and wanted to go to sleep. But I had an SIPJ Business meeting at my house that evening so had to truck on.

The next day we were invited to go to Melaka with Rinpoche to meet his long time student, Dato' Eric Tan. I had a session at Dr. Low's in the morning and told him how tired I felt. He said that it was probably because i got the chills. After acupuncture and spinal realignment, we are not supposed to touch water or wind (i.e. shower or be near direct fan or aircon). This is because the treatment opens up our pores and water and wind can enter our body and give us chills. He gave me some medication for it and did some acupuncture on my head to realign the energy. I actually felt faint. Susan also felt the same thing and we both had to go lie down. We felt better after awhile and went off to Melaka for the day. Dr. Low had also advised that we sleep early for 100 days after the start of treatment. This was because our body regains its energy during 10pm-3am. If we are awake during those hours, our body doesn't get the chance to recuperate. However, that day after Melaka, we only got home after 3 and slept at 4am!

On the third day I was off my medication, my fasting sugar level was 9.2. Yes, way off what it's supposed to be, but workable. We didn't get the chance to go to Dr. Low's because he was booked up all day.

Yesterday was my fourth day, and my fasting sugar was 7.3. I had stayed at Dr. Low's clinic all day, being poked for my sugar level almost every hour. I also had acupuncture - one needle on my head and five in my right leg.

We had vegetarian food all day. Vegetarian food was also the rule of the game. Apparently meat was toxic to us and as i have been eating 39 years of meat, it would take 10 years of vegetarian diet to put me back to normal!

I can do the sleep early, I can do the no smoking, but no meat?! Actually he also said no sex but...

Anyway, it's not JUST vegetarian - we cannot eat protein of any kind, even in vegetables. So no soya bean either. And no garlic and no onions. And no spices so even Indian vegetarian food was out. Susan and I looked through a whole vegetarian cookbook and found nothing we could eat. Which meant we had to write our own cook book!

So far all I could eat was cabbage soup (with no onion), grilled zucchinis, aubergines, peppers. Fried vegetables with ginger. Mashed potato. Bland are us!

For the sake of health, i'll grin and bear it.

Today is Dr. Low's day off so tomorrow it's back to being poked. Watch this space.