All my patients knows that I will be out of my office for volunteer medical service with other Chinese Medicine doctors and Acupuncturists once a year. We went to different locations in the world, all of them are the places which really lack of medical resource. People live in there are suffered from illness like you and me, but they can not afford to go to clinic or hospital, or it’s difficult for them to go to doctors. They will go only if it’s definitely in critical condition. This is a case happened in one of the journal.
The patient is a Rinpoche. He is the leader of a Tibetan monastery in China. He used to be a very good Tibetan doctor himself, but has been paralyzed after having stroke six years ago. The stroke not only paralyzed his left side body, it also affect his speech ability, which tell us the stroke has affected both sides of his brain.
The patient has been through western medicine treatment, but still can not move his left side of body and can not speak a single word. His left hand is a tight fist and can not open. Luckily he still can express his feeling by making a humming sound, so the servant can communicate with him. I had been assigned to take care of the Rinpoche. Since we stayed in the monastery to do the volunteer medical service for only one week, I really did not expect much for the treatment result.
The patients’ damage is in both side of his brain, so the best way to stimulate his brain is using acupuncture. I choose acupuncture points on both his head and body. Most of the points on his right side of head are treating his moving ability of left side body, some of the needles are on the side and back of head are for speech capability.
On the third day when I performing the treatment, the Rinpoche suddenly spoke a few simple words in Tibetan when his servant was report to him. All the people in the room were shocked and silent at once! But we do notice he is trying hard to speak, but can not make it again. The next couple day the servant continue talked to him, and the Rinpoche indeed replied again with some words in some occasions!! That made everyone in the monastery very exciting. Considered he had already under western medicine treating six years but can not speak, and starting to talk only under few days of acupuncture treatment, that’s a huge progress.
Of course acupuncture is not the only way for the stroke treatment, I had prescribe the Chinese herb remedy for him to take as well. That formula not only can improve the blood circulation inside his head, but also remove the blockage in his meridians. The combined of acupuncture and herb remedy worked great in his case. Before we left, I did notice his left hand had been loosen, not that tight anymore, that’s also a great improvement. In Traditional Chinese Medicine theory, the longer time you were under the illness condition, the more time you need for treatment to recover. Even it’s already been six years since Rinpoche got stroke, by judging the progress he had in one week, we are sure he will improve more from the stoke conditions if he can continually have the acupuncture plus herb remedy treatment.