Adventures In Acupuncture

First, a little background...

If you're new here, or haven't read all the archived columns, then you probably don't know that I am virtually blind.  I was diagnosed two years ago with multiple sclerosis, after losing my sight entirely.

It happened one afternoon, when I had a sudden and overwhelming loss of energy, not unlike the onset of a bad flu.  I laid down for about five minutes, and when I opened my eyes, I was profoundly blind.  It was that fast.  By the next day, it had gone from white-out to completely black, except that I could detect certain high-contrast patterns in the lower part of my vision.  Strangely, light sources appeared more black that everything else, and LCD displays appeared to be glowing purple rectangles.

That began about a three month odyssey through multiple hospitals and nearly a dozen specialists.  I spent a week in the hospital (AINI here in Jakarta), where I was pumped full of powerful steroids.  After getting out, I continued on the steroids orally for another month. I had CAT scans and MRIs, only to find lesions on the optic nerves, called sclera, which were blocking the signals.

Multiple sclerosis is a degenerative disease in which the immune system, for no known reason, attacks the myellin sheath covering all the nerves in your body.  The attack leaves scar tissue, called sclera, that inhibits the nerves from tranferring information.  The disease usually hits the sensory nerves first, or at least those are the ones you notice the most.  The attack results in blindness, deafness, muscle spasms, loss of feeling in extremities, and a number of other fun things.  Eventually, it affects motor nerves and people are left in wheelchairs, unable to walk and with no sense of balance.

After six months in and out of different clinics and hospitals, I was told that there is nothing allopathic medicine can do, but offer medication that supposedly slows the progress of the disease while imparting many unsavory side effects.  Otherwise, if I had another attack, they could pump me full of steroids again and hope that I regain a little ground.

If I were living in America, that would probably be it.  Either swallow nasty pills for the rest of my life and hope I get a couple of extra years, or pray and hope.  But, I live in Asia, where there are far more options for my health care.

I started researching and using herbal treatments and vitamins, with some success here and there, but nothing stunning.  Then I came across the Pacific College of Asian Medicine, in California of all places.  They had several testimonials from people who had suffered from MS for 15 years or more, and they were jumping up and down (literally) after receiving acupuncture.  They had regained a good amount of eye-sight, sensation in their limbs and various other benefits.

Well, I thought, here I am a stone's throw from China.  Surely I can find good acupuncture here.  After asking around, the consensus was a clinic over by Old Town, not too far from my house.

So, all of this set-up is to introduce a weekly feature here on Sunday.  Today I had my first session and I intend to chronicle the progress and experience for the benefit of others who might be able to use the information.

The modality involves two hours a week in the clinic.  All of the information I have found says that it's best to combine the acupuncture with other modalities, so I am adding ginko biloba and skullcap to my vitamin regimen, which already includes vitamin C, D3, Calcium, Royal Jelly, and a good quality multi-vitamin.  By way of disclaimer, I am using the Nature's Bounty vitamins, since I know the national marketing director here in Indonesia.

I will attempt to accurately relay all benefits and side-effects that I feel.  The treatment will last about three months on Wednesday and Saturday mornings.  Each session last 30 minutes, with another 30 for set-up and clean-up.  Total cost per session is IDR 46,000 ($5.39), which includes a IDR 3,000 surcharge for using more than 8 needles.

As a starting point, I will describe the symptoms as they are now.  First, I am virtually 100% sight-loss in the right eye, and the left is something like wrapping a pair of amber Oakley's in fine gauze and smearing the center with Vaseline.  I also have no color vision in the center of field of view.  There is still some in the peripheral view of both eyes.  I have regular 'pins and needles' in my lower legs and intermittent muscle spasms in my lower legs and lower back.  There is little to no feeling at all in the middle three toes on both feet.  My ears ring almost constantly and my sense of balance is completely wonky.  On some days, and after eating certain foods, I get tremors in my hands.  Not bad, but bad enough.

After entering the clinic and registering, as usual, I was taken into the treatment area, which consisted of maybe 20 walled-off cubicles with draped entries.  The first order of business was to consult with the sin she, a small, middle-aged woman named Tjoe.  I described the symptoms, just as I did above.  She took my pulse and blood pressure, looked at my tongue and asked about appetite and bowel movements, as well as liver.  I explained I had no problems related to internal organs, just sensory and motor control.  She had never heard of multile sclerosis (it's very rare among Asians).

I was then taken to a cubicle, where I removed my shoes and laid on a padded table.  After a couple of minutes, the sin she came in and placed the needles: one on either side of the back of my neck just under the skull, one in front of each ear, one under each eye, one over each eye, one in each temple.  The placements corresponded to the locations of the primary facial nerves and the roots of the long thoracic nerves.  One needle was placed in the webbing between the thumb of forefinger of both hands.  Finally, one in the top of each foot.

The placement of the needles was somewhat uncomfortable, but not particularly painful.  I had rather interesting sensations that so far, I am at a loss to describe.  It was kind of a cross between a sever tickle and a twinge, if that makes any sense.  The ones in my hands and feet were almost unnoticed.  The one that hurt the most was the one in front of my left ear, which corresponded to a spot where I've had occasional pain for many years in the jaw joint.

At that point, the sin she left and her assistant came in.  She hooked a device to the needles in my face.  It produced electric pulses that caused my face muscles to flinch about ten times a minute.  After starting the treatment, she left and I laid there for about 30 minutes.

The sensation was slightly uncomfortable, particularly at the left jaw joint.  If I flaxed a certain muscle on that side, I got a quick jolt of pain, however, if I lay still and let my mind wander, it was almost pleasant.

I drifted off and before I knew it, the assistant had turned off the pulse device and was disconnecting the leads.  She then removed the needles and swabbed the points with alcohol, as was done when they were inserted.

When I opened my eyes, I immediately noticed that things were considerably brighter, as though more lights had been turned on.  As I got up from the table, I felt more balanced, stonger in my stance.  I had a slight headache that followed the 11th facial nerve up the left side of my face.  Strangely, I had a hard time focusing my eyes.  Things seemed blurry, or at least more than usual, even with my glasses.

I was told that when I got home, I was to rub the needle points 20 times each, and then press the heals of my hands directly in front of my ears and drum my fingers along the back of my back of my head for a few seconds, and then release quickly.

When I walked outside (my stride was much steadier), it seemed quite a bit brighter than before.  I also noticed right away that I could see the color yellow quite vividly, which I hadn't seen for two years.  I have been able to see saturated blues, but now I could discern different hues of blue.  I still can't see green at all, and I can barely see red in most cases.

By evening, my eyes were focusing again and I've been able to see details that I haven't seen before.  For example, when I looked at people's faces, they were blank except for dark spots where the eyes, nose and mouth were.  It made it quite difficult to recognize people unless they talked to me.  This evening, I can see quite a bit of detail in my wife's face and in those of my neighbors and friends, details I have never seen before.

The changes are very subtle, but if you haven't been able to see certain colors and details for two years, the small differences jump out like neon signs.  As I sit here writing, I notice that the muscle spasms in my legs have stopped, my lower back pain is gone, and the toes which haven't had any sensation for a long time feel very warm, though still a bit numb.

Because of my poor sense of balance and lack of feeling in my toes, I had developed a kind of 'old man' shuffle when I walked.  Tonight, I notice that I am walking normally and confidently, though I have the advantage of knowing my current surroundings very well.  The big test will be unfamiliar locations, which have been the most difficult for me.

I am quite impressed with the results after only one treatment.  There is still a long way to go, but I am encouraged.  The course of treatment will include one hour every Wednesday and Saturday for the next three months.  I will post results as I go every Sunday, for those who are interested.  If you or someone you know has issues with motor or neural function, then you may want to pay attention.  As I mentioned, I am combining the acupuncture with my usual vitamin regimen, plus ginko biloba and skullcap, which are recommended for brain and nerve function.  When i find a good source, i will add Goji berry, as well.

What will be most interesting to see is if alternative treatments offer hope, if not outright cures, where Western pill pushing fails.  As far as allopathic medicine, I was given no hope of recovery and only a chance of maintaining current condition through life-long pill popping.  Could it be that an ancient technique offers hope where none exists in 'modern' medicine?  Could it be that socialized medicine and Big Pharma don't want people cured, but rather addicted to life-long quackery?

Stay tuned...

Put A Little English On It

"Language! It's a virus!
Language! It's a virus!
Language! It's a virus!

"Well I dreamed there was an island
That rose up from the sea.
And everybody on the island
Was somebody from TV.
And there was a beautiful view
But nobody could see.
Cause everybody on the island
Was saying: Look at me! Look at me!
Look at me! Look at me!"

-Laurie Anderson, "Language is a Virus"

In billiards, you can spin the cue ball left or right to control the angle of deflection of the target ball. That spin is called 'english.'

In English, you can have a house that isn't a home. You can 'take' a shower, when you really leave something. You can 'make' a phone call when you really don't make anything at all. In English, a corporation can be a 'person,' and you can have a dozen different ways to murder (homicide, justifiable homicide, manslaughter, premeditated murder, etc.). You have 15 different ways to describe the past, the present and the future, and show the intricate relationship of one action to another in time.

If language is a virus, then English is the H1N1 of languages.

English has killed so many other languages. There are scores of native American languages that will never be heard again because of English. Gaelic is fighting to stay alive. Latin has died a painful death after centuries of dominance. India has been deeply infected. France had to form a committee to replace English infections with healthy French tissue. German schools were infected after WWII, and now Asian schools are picking up the epidemic.

The the WHO does nothing. Merck and Lily aren't scrambling to create vaccines. Against reason, people are lined up to become infected. The virus has infected even the halls of science, so that studies and research are all published in English. In business, no one takes you seriously unless you have the virus.

English is an amazingly complex virus. It evolves and changes over time to fit into any eco-system. It thrives on education and millions of people have come down with symptoms. It starts slowly but quickly the infection spreads. First, it's words like 'e-mail' and 'computer,' but before you know what's happening, you've got things like 'boring' and 'hangout.' It started on an obscure island off the coast of Europe and now has infected a greater part of the world. Patient Zero was a people called the Angles, who inhabited the central part of an island. They built some ships and began spreading the virus far and wide, and now the virus is indemnic in some areas.

The situation has become so bad now that there has formed an elite group of carriers who call themselves 'native speakers.' They travel around to different countries infecting large numbers of people, while looking down on 'non-native speakers.'

In the movies and on TV, everyone speaks English, no matter where they are from. Even aliens for distant planets speak the language eloquently. Some shows, like Star Trek, invent things like Universal Translators that change any native language into English. And it's getting worse.

In meetings all over the world, people from disparate backgrounds and cultures get together to talk about business, and the only thing that comes out of their mouths is English. If you make a film or write a book, no one will pay attention unless it's in English. Product labels can have anything you want on it, as long as it includes something in English.

Something must be done.

Soon this virus will invade every corner of the Earth. It will displace other beneficial viri until all life on the planet will depend on English. Even now, the French are destroying their country from the inside out trying to fight the English invasion. Before you know it, even simple words like 'thot' will be written like 'thought.' Alphabets will die on the vine. Great words like 'Rheinfahrtsgeselschaftkapiten' will be replaced with colorless phrases such as 'barge captain.' Tenseless languages will be invaded with incredibly precise time statements for no good reason. Even the non-sensical use of present continuous when speaking of future events will sully every tongue.

We must do something now, before it's too late. Already, school kids in remote places are being taught the difference between 'to, too and two' and 'for, fore and four.' You can just see their pained expressions when they learn that to+too=fore. Will we subject our future generations to this horrible fate? Will our progeny cause us for making words like 'ot' spell like 'ought?'

Where is the justice? Where is the WHO? Where are the myriad NGOs who worry endlessly about bird and swine viri, and not this horror that is unleashed upon us?

The only ray of hope is that the British strain of the virus is not as virulent. The American strain at least saves us from such painful spellings as 'colour,' 'programme' and 'centre,' not to mention 'tyre.' Those of us infected with the North American variety can also be thankful we don't have symptoms, such as pronouncing words like 'funny' and 'foo-nay.' Even worse are the effects on vocabulary, such as the British 'boot and bonnet' for the more masculine 'trunk and hood.'

Time is short. Taking action now will save countless lives from English. You can start with a simple process of using Esperanto. There is still hope that an artificial virus such as Esperanto can painlessly replace the English virus using genetic modification of existing languages to form a hybrid. If English is allowed to infect and replace all the other 'wild' viri, then in 50 to 100 years, there will be nothing but dialects left.

And the French will have completely destroyed themselves for nothing.