A week after twisting my right knee, the swelling started to get worse, my knee stiffened, and it became noticeably more difficult to walk on my right leg. When my good friend saw me limping around, she immediately recommended I see her Traditional Chinese Doctor. Having always been intrigued by Traditional Chinese Medicine, I immediately accepted and she scheduled an appointment for me the next day. In the meantime, the Doctor prescribed a treatment of fresh ginger, crushed and heated, to be placed directly on my swollen knee and wrapped in plastic.
With my friend’s help, we put the fresh, crushed, warm ginger on my knee, with juice from the ginger dripping all down my leg. Once we got the plastic wrapped around my leg with the ginger, I could feel the warm, almost burning sensation of the fresh ginger on my skin. I left the wrapped ginger on my knee overnight, and when I removed the wrap the next morning, the swelling had almost completely disappeared and I could walk on my right leg with significantly less tightness and pain! In fact, I could walk almost completely normally.
When I saw the Doctor later in the day, he began by massaging my right knee to remove any blockages. He worked the knee, which was quite painful. At first I resisted the pain and my body tensed up. Then I relaxed into the pain, which made the pain then seem much less intense. When the Doctor was finished working on my knee, he did acupuncture by inserting needles around my knee and on the bottom of my foot. It didn’t hurt and once the needles were inserted, I no longer noticed them. Next he worked on my neck, upper back, and shoulders to remove any blockages there, and interestingly, every so often he hit a pressure point on my upper body and I felt a tingling sensation around the needles.
The Doctor worked on my stomach and chest, and discovered that I had gas in my chest cavity around my heart. I laughed when he told me that I would have to cut back on the amount of meat that I eat – I haven’t eaten meat in almost two years! So I asked him how long that gas had been there. He said it was at least three years old (I have no idea how he knew that). Now I have yet another reason to not eat meat! The Doctor told me that gas in the chest cavity is common, and is caused by eating meat, over-eating, and stress. He worked that gas out of my chest cavity, and I could feel it gurgling into my stomach as he pushed it out.
The Doctor spent a full hour working on me, and by the time he was finished, my knee and my whole body felt looser and better. He told me that the injury to my knee is not serious (thankfully!) and that it will heal in about a week as long as I stay off it and continue to treat it with fresh ginger.
The Traditional Chinese Doctor’s approach of working on my entire body is something I’ve never experienced before with western medicine. Had I gone to a western Doctor, he or she would have looked only at my knee, probably taken an x-ray, and then given me a prescription for pain medication and maybe a brace, or worse yet, recommended surgery. I love the Traditional Chinese approach, which has been around for thousands of years, because no part of my body, including my knee, is isolated from the rest of my body – it’s all connected, and treating my body as a whole enhances my healing. I feel better already!
With my friend’s help, we put the fresh, crushed, warm ginger on my knee, with juice from the ginger dripping all down my leg. Once we got the plastic wrapped around my leg with the ginger, I could feel the warm, almost burning sensation of the fresh ginger on my skin. I left the wrapped ginger on my knee overnight, and when I removed the wrap the next morning, the swelling had almost completely disappeared and I could walk on my right leg with significantly less tightness and pain! In fact, I could walk almost completely normally.
When I saw the Doctor later in the day, he began by massaging my right knee to remove any blockages. He worked the knee, which was quite painful. At first I resisted the pain and my body tensed up. Then I relaxed into the pain, which made the pain then seem much less intense. When the Doctor was finished working on my knee, he did acupuncture by inserting needles around my knee and on the bottom of my foot. It didn’t hurt and once the needles were inserted, I no longer noticed them. Next he worked on my neck, upper back, and shoulders to remove any blockages there, and interestingly, every so often he hit a pressure point on my upper body and I felt a tingling sensation around the needles.
The Doctor worked on my stomach and chest, and discovered that I had gas in my chest cavity around my heart. I laughed when he told me that I would have to cut back on the amount of meat that I eat – I haven’t eaten meat in almost two years! So I asked him how long that gas had been there. He said it was at least three years old (I have no idea how he knew that). Now I have yet another reason to not eat meat! The Doctor told me that gas in the chest cavity is common, and is caused by eating meat, over-eating, and stress. He worked that gas out of my chest cavity, and I could feel it gurgling into my stomach as he pushed it out.
The Doctor spent a full hour working on me, and by the time he was finished, my knee and my whole body felt looser and better. He told me that the injury to my knee is not serious (thankfully!) and that it will heal in about a week as long as I stay off it and continue to treat it with fresh ginger.
The Traditional Chinese Doctor’s approach of working on my entire body is something I’ve never experienced before with western medicine. Had I gone to a western Doctor, he or she would have looked only at my knee, probably taken an x-ray, and then given me a prescription for pain medication and maybe a brace, or worse yet, recommended surgery. I love the Traditional Chinese approach, which has been around for thousands of years, because no part of my body, including my knee, is isolated from the rest of my body – it’s all connected, and treating my body as a whole enhances my healing. I feel better already!
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