Jin & Tonic

I've been getting a lot of infections of sorts lately, which the usual suspects (doctors) can't seem to figure out the cause of nor get rid of. After trying "home remedies" like adjusting my diet and chugging apple cider vinegar to no avail, I made an appointment to see a Chinese herbalist. Rather, she's a licensed acupuncturist, but I just wanted immune-boosting herbs. The name of her practice is Jin & Tonic (like herbal tonic...cool right?)

I went to her office yesterday and was really excited 'cause I'm into this kinda stuff, and we talked about what's going on, and she gave me a bunch of eastern-informed balanced diet tips. Apparently I have too much "damp heat" in my body, so I shouldn't have raw veggies or cow's dairy (which create mucus), yeast, sugar, spices, coffee, or grilled things. I should have a lot of sauteed greens, herbal tea, and grains. Fruit is fine. Eventually I should be able to reincorporate spices, goat's dairy, grilled things, limited wheat, and occasional raw veggies, but not white sugar. I also learned that the spleen is somehow connected to sugar (and the liver is connected to sourness...I don't fully understand this part), but the fact that I eat way too much sugar is probably related to having had mono (spleen failure) 3 times throughout my life, first very severely at age 5.

Then she said "So you want acupuncture?". And I said "Uuhhh if that's what you think I need". And she said it was. Not only that, but she recommended a treatment called Gua Sha, which involves "scraping" the back and neck with a curved seashell-looking tool to pull the toxins out of your body. She said it would hurt, but was necessary if I wanted to really get healthier. So I did both.

I feel like every time I've seen someone get acupuncture on TV, you know, like when I watch the Dr. Oz show at the gym, the patient is always so shocked because they can't even feel it and it doesn't hurt at all. That's wrong. It's not super painful, but you definitely feel a prick from the needle. After a while it goes away, but on some sensitive parts it doesn't. And don't you dare move, because you will feel it. I literally had to lay completely still for half an hour. When I did unintentionally twitch my big toe, my calf cramped up horribly and I thought I had ruined everything. But it went by pretty fast and was sorta relaxing. I wish she had taken a picture, 'cause I would have liked to see myself with needles sticking out of my face.

Then came the Gua Sha. She prefaced it by saying "I don't press too hard but it will feel like I'm scraping off your skin". Good. In fact, her definition of "not too hard" is completely opposed to my definition. I don't even know what to say about it, other than that it's exactly what you would imagine. It was ridiculously painful, more so in some sensitive, more toxin-ated parts. In the picture you see below, that's not actually bruising, those are my toxins. Bruises don't show up the second you bump your leg, they take a while, at least a few minutes, to develop. This was instant. Like the second she pulled one little scrape across my shoulder blade she's say "oh this part's gonna be bad".

All in all, she said it wasn't as bad as she expected and that I probably have good metabolism since I'm young and fairly active. Though some parts are dark purple, it could have been black. Take a look:

The lingering pain isn't is bad as you would expect, but my neck is pretty stiff and it does feel like my back is mildly-moderately bruised. I actually think it's pretty badass and I don't regret it at all. I can't say whether I feel more energetic or detoxified for now, but I don't feel worse so...that's gotta mean something.