As yesterday went along it got much better.
When I woke up in the morning I started to feel really sick again, and by the time Yasu came home at lunch time I had all the stomach cramps and nausea back.
I didn’t feel like going back to hospital, so I quickly scanned the Yellow Pages for a Chinese Medicine doctor. I found one in the city and they had a booking for me for 3:15pm. Yasu took me in there and then I sat down with Jane who went through my medical history.
She checked my pulse, looked at my tongue and wrote down everything in Chinese. Very authentic.
She told me that my problem is that I have a liver qi block. In Chinese medicine the energy or “qi” (chi) is what flows through the body and if you have a block then the qi won’t flow smoothly and in my case instead of flowing down, which is the natural direction, the qi was blocked and flowing upwards, which is what is making me feel nauseated.
The liver qi regulates the digestive organs and is probably one of the largest qi in the body that regulates all other qi. The doctor said that because I had been experiencing these symptoms since 2001 and gradually I had been getting more, then the blockage had been building up until now, when I spent time in hospital because the blockage was too much for my body to handle.
Here are some of the symptoms commonly associated with Liver Qi stagnation:
- Pain or discomfort anywhere along the sides of the body
- Depression
- Mood swings
- Sighing
- Hiccups
- Frustration
- Inappropriate anger
- Sensation of a lump in throat
- Difficulty swallowing
- Bitter taste in mouth
- Constipation
- Abdominal pain and discomfort
- Stomachache that improves after massage
- Stomachache that worsens with anger
- PMS with irritability or swollen breasts
- Irregular or painful periods
- Poor appetite
- Churning sensation in stomach
And no surprise I have every one of them!!! I am also surprised to find that irregular periods are on there too.
Well after my diagnosis I had 25 minutes of acupuncture, including electronic acupuncture (that pulses) on my stomach, head, wrists, feet, and legs. Then I was prescribed 3 different liver qi medications, 10 each, 3 times per day (90 pills per day, granted they are very small though like dots).
When I walked out of there I had lost half of the bad sensations I had walked in with. The bloated feeling that I had, the cramping pains, the lethargy, the nausea. And as the day progressed, I felt better and better. I immediately had to urinate, almost as if my body was getting rid of the toxins or blockage.
By evening the lump that had been in my throat for 2 years had vanished. Wow!
I will have acupuncture 3x week for the next two weeks to get on top of and remove the blockage, and I will take the pills for a week, and then the doctor said if I can handle the taste she would give me the real root form to boil up and drink (yuck!!).
Amazing!!
So I felt really crap when I woke up yesterday but by evening I was much better.
I arrived home to find Jo waiting for me with a present, I will post the pics in the next post (later). And there was a card from my mum in the letterbox with $50 inside which I was really surprised about. The best thing was the card that said “Happy birthday to a wonderful daughter”, which was really touching and made my day.
Yasu also surprised me with a card and a dvd of the movie The Karate Kid. Don’t ask me why!! I do like the movie though and the dvd has all three movies on it. Sometimes I don’t know how Yasu thinks, but it was sweet of him anyway. :)
Yasu also brought home some pork bulgogi for our dinner and he cooked for me and washed the dishes (very nice) and then we had marbled baked cheesecake & bee sting cake for dessert. Yasu bought half of each cake for us to try.
So it turned out to be a very nice birthday much to my surprise!!
Because I had acupuncture in my forehead between my eyes, the place that is meant for relaxing, by 8:30 I was yawning my head off, so Yasu and I both headed for bed. We both slept through the night like logs and woke up at 5am this morning.
I feel good, no pain, no bloating, no nausea, no lump in throat. Ahh…why did I waste my time with the hospital! I should’ve just gone this route a long time ago.
I also want to say thank you to all the birthday wishes on facebook and twitter, they made my day, and I’m so happy to consider you all my friends, even if some of you I have never met. I hope to rectify that someday. :)
