Wind Heat

This last week will be, perhaps, remembered as "interesting" in retrospect.

Wednesday: a very profound acupuncture treatment. I could tell while I was still on the table that he was working a completely different level.

Thursday: nasty, nasty sick. I had maybe 18 hours to enjoy my profound acupuncture treatment, until my health took such a dive that you could hear its screams dopplering as it plunged into the depths.

I'm still nasty sick. I'm thinking it'll probably be at least another full week, if not longer, before I'm operating at what's come to be "normal." I managed to leave the house today to spend ten minutes in fresh air in the back yard. If I had a hammock, I'd still be there, but having to sit up was too much of a strain.

What's interesting is that this sort of thing happened a lot, years ago: A really good acupuncture treatment, followed immediately by this particular set of symptoms. While I don't for a second think that I'm being "infected" by my doctor or his office, it's interesting that some treatments seem to trigger this set of symptoms.

What's also interesting is that my herbalist and Qi Gong practitioner see the problem that may very well be at the root of my MS in the Lung official, the Lungs having been "scorched," as my herbalist put it, by Fire, something my five-element acupuncturist is constantly shepherding.

What's additionally interesting is that the set of symptoms from which I'm suffering correspond to an attack of "Wind and Heat," two of the External Pernicious Influences in Chinese medicine (the others being Cold, Dryness, and Dampness) from which I usually suffer in the winter, when outside is cold and inside is warm, but warm and dry, and usually just turning on the heater in December is enough to bring this condition on.

And now it gets really interesting: the bedside themo/humidity meter says 72 degrees at 60% . It's only vaguely warm (hardly seems to qualify as "heat" in either the western or Chinese sense of the word) and it's definitely more than humid enough. And yet, I can definitely feel some sort of "scorched" going on in my physical lungs, much less my Lung official.

And oh yeah, my legs are freezing cold from the knees down to the tops of my feet. Bottoms of my feet are too hot. (This, in particular, drives the herbalist nuts. Too warm, he can cool you down. Too cold, he can warm you up. Parts of your body too warm... "Very difficult case," he says.)

I will be very surprised if there isn't some deep energetic connection going on here. There are too many coincidences. Every person I've worked with on the Oriental side of the medical-care world has told me that I have to be extremely careful with the "temperature" of treatments. Too warm, I boil over; too cold, I freeze up. "Always balance," my herbalist says. Well, temperature-balanced is one thing I am most definitely not, right now.

'Course, doing something about it is another matter.