It came slowly, but when it appeared again, one day 4 weeks ago I really noticed. The pain had spread its way into the entire back of my leg... It had gotten so bad, that in the middle of a sleepless night, I was up screaming to myself begging for morphine and a sterilized saw-blade. In search of some relief, I ended up going to the after hours clinic, hobbling in to see the doctor. While there was not quite enough exclamation marks or energy left in me to express the pain verbally, I settled for a solemnl telling of how it was hell. To think I had broken bones before, played lacrosse and even watched the entire last season of Lost, (complete with with questionable ending). I knew pain, and this was the worst by far. “There's no swelling” she said . “Its probably just muscle spasms”. “Sure” I thought 2 days of non-stop muscle spasms and she was probably just a sadist. I wondered if she was just trolling me, or did she expect me to ask for a note to get out of an exam. In the end I just hobbled away taking my prescription for hard pain medications with me.
Just as I took a sigh of relief thinking to myself "that's done with" ; Nope, it wasn't, and so it got worse. The pain continued, occupying almost the entirety of my thoughts, my condition progressed, with my muscles tightening worse then Scrooge at a charitable fundraiser. It just can't get worse I thought, there is no way, but even then it did. A few days later I went in to see my family doctor who able to provide the same muscle spasms theory as the previous doctor . “Muscle spasms", hmmm I thought, non-stop for close to a week now. Without much by way of explanation, and only hard and ineffectual painkillers I ventured that I may need another opinion, so I talked to some of the dozens of nurses I know, including my Aunt, Mother and close family friends. They weren’t sure what it was but offered a possible solution that, that my average of 2 hours a night of sleep/ brain would be inclined to agree to; The solution, have some nice Chinese lady, message me and stick needles into me. Acupuncture they call it.
Hmmm, worth a shot, (no pun intended) I would gladly take a needle or two, or half a dozen in order to ease the pain. This lead to the the only time I would ever pay money for physical contact, which would also help me isolate what was wrong and eventual find ways of treating/ curing preventing it. To skip forward in time for a moment I'm at a much greater place now to be able to even sit down briefly and write about these experiences. Having gone through them, and having the worst behind me I can only think of how incredibly useful it would have been for me to have stumbled upon a website that would lay out this painful acquired knowledge. So we now have the purpose of this blog post ! A quick run down of the start and the intention of laying out the conditions, symptoms causes, treatments, and preventions by the end of part 2 of this blog post. Firstly though, more on the little lady with the big needles....
Part 2 - Chinese philosophy - Needles -What is it ?- Sweet relief
