Lesson #19: What it's like to be treated with "alternative" medicine

First of all, I feel the need to apologize for waiting so long to write this blog post. As you can see, my previous post was written way back in June! Tim and I did spend the month of July and part of August back "home" in Missouri.

During my time back home, I decided to visit a naturopathic/functional medicine doctor. I currently don't have medical insurance in the US anyway, so I figured it would be a good time to visit a doctor that is not covered by insurance. If you've followed my blog, you know that I've tried every other kind of mainstream doctor in the past. Unfortunately, none of my past doctors have been able to help me with my chronic pain. That's why I chose to visit an "alternative medicine" doctor. Functional medicine doctors look for the root cause of symptoms (such as pain).

During my first visit, my doctor ordered blood tests and gave me a Dutch  test (https://dutchtest.com/)  to evaluate my hormone levels. Upon my follow-up visit, I learned that my blood test levels were mostly all normal. My ferritin serum levels were low, which indicates that I have an iron deficiency. That is not unusual for people with endometriosis. My doctor prescribed me a multi-vitamin to help elevate my levels. Additionally, my vitamin D levels were extremely low. Vitamin D levels should be at least 30, and my levels were at 16! I wasn't surprised because every time my levels are tested, I'm low; so my doctor prescribed a liquid vitamin D supplement. As far as the Dutch hormone test is concerned, I discovered that my body is not metabolizing my estrogen hormones properly. For that, my doctor prescribed a supplement called Vital Nutrients Hormone Balance. She also prescribed Saw Palmetto, which is supposed to support the elimination of estrogen in the body. Additionally, my doctor prescribed a fish oil supplement to help reduce inflammation. As you can imagine, I felt conflicted taking the fish oil because of my knowledge about the high levels of dioxins in animal products. However, I feel that I need to be willing to try whatever the doctor prescribes if I want to give this treatment a fair chance. On the plus side, I learned that my TSH levels improved (without medication)! The year before, my TSH levels tested high at 3.16. At this visit, I learned that my TSH levels were at 1.330. I'm not sure how they improved, but I wouldn't be surprised if eating a mostly plant-based diet and reducing my working hours had something to do with it. Not only did the naturopathic doctor prescribe supplements, but she also asked me to eat an anti-inflammatory/elimination diet for four weeks. Considering I was home just for the summer, I had planned on eating all the tasty (vegetarian) foods that I missed while in China. Instead, most of my summer was spent reading labels and avoiding gluten, dairy, potatoes, corn, peppers, soy, eggplants, chocolate, tomatoes, coffee, sugar, and eggs. And I of course also avoided meat. As I expected, the diet did not help my pain. As a vegetarian, I must say that the diet was especially difficult. In fact, it was too difficult for me to sustain. Especially in China where I can't read most of the labels. At my follow-up visit, my doctor also suggested that I try acupuncture while I'm living in China. She actually treats her patients with acupuncture in her clinic, but because my time back home was so limited, she didn't bother with it this summer. I'm sure it would've been very expensive at her clinic anyway. I told her that I was skeptical about finding a place to do acupuncture because I had visited a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) doctor last year, and he told me that he couldn't do anything to help me. Nevertheless, I told her that I would use my contacts and try again.

Once I returned to Wuxi, I sadly didn't try to find a doctor right away. As it turned out, I didn't have to try at all! Soon after our return, our acquaintance, Mr. Kim, asked to meet with us for coffee. He has lived in Wuxi for a long time and has many connections in the community. After talking with him for a little bit at the coffee shop across the street from our apartment complex, he shared that he would like to help me get better. He told us that he knew of a couple different TCM doctors who might be able to help me.

TCM Hospital

The next Saturday, I first visited Dr. Wang at a TCM hospital in downtown Wuxi. This hospital is a private hospital, so it was very different from the one I visited last November! The very first thing I noticed was the dried herbs that surrounded us as soon as we walked inside. Furthermore, no one was waiting in long lines. After we were shown where to go, Dr. Wang looked at my tongue and checked my pulse. I knew he was a legitimate TCM doctor right away. The TCM doctor at the hospital I visited last year did neither of those things!  Then, he did a quick massage to determine where I have tension and/or pain. He then asked me a few questions (with Mr. Kim translating) regarding my health and prescribed an herbal medicine formula. Dr. Wang also  asked me to come in for a total of ten treatments of massage and acupuncture. I ended up paying a total of about $50 for everything. I received my first treatment before leaving the hospital that morning. Because I had tried dry needling back in the US, I kind of knew what to expect (as far as the pain). However, acupuncture is done very differently from dry needling. Dr. Wang focused on treating my back and hip pain. All in all, the experience wasn't too painful.

In the afternoon, Mr. Kim took us to see Dr. Jie. Mr. Kim told me that Dr. Jie actually lived and worked in the US for about 10 years. Dr. Jie's private office is located in a district farther away from where we live. He actually practices medicine in a fancy apartment building there. When we got there, Dr. Jie also looked at my tongue and checked my pulse. He asked me specifically about my endometriosis and told me that he has successfully treated a couple of other women with my disease. It was good to find a doctor who was familiar with endometriosis. Dr. Jie did acupuncture on my abdomen, which included poking needles into my belly button! He also put needles in my hands. Dr. Jie's method of acupuncture is also very different from Dr. Wang's. Every ten minutes, Dr. Jie "reactivates" the needles by pushing them in further. His acupunture treatment is actually much more painful than Dr. Wang's. I left Dr. Jie's office in pain. What's more, I felt extremely exhausted the rest of the day. From reading online, that apparently means that my body is responding well to the acupuncture.

My herbal medicine formula

After that first Saturday, I've been seeing Dr. Wang for treatments twice a week. The massages are excrutiatingly painful, but I do feel better after the treatments. I also took most of the herbal medicine that he prescribed, but it was disgusting! I have no idea what I was drinking, but the herbs were liquified somehow. I had to drink the bitter herbal medicine drink twice a day. Not only did it taste horrible, but it actually started hurting my stomach. Dr. Wang wanted to prescribe me more medicine, but I told him that I didn't want any more because it hurt my stomach. Additionally, Mr. Kim has been taking me to see Dr. Jie once a week on Saturdays.

Sadly, I haven't noticed any difference in my pain, and I've almost completed all of my treatments with Dr. Wang. I hope that I will eventually see some improvements with Dr. Jie's treatments plus the supplements that my functional medicine doctor prescribed!