The Magic of TCM

By Ke Yunlu

The Magic of TCM

By Ke Yunlu

My friend’s son hadn’t been studying abroad for more than a short while when he suffered a terrible injury and was in excruciating pain. He hurried off to the hospital where X-rays were taken and he was diagnosed with a lunate dislocation. The doctors warned him of its seriousness and advised that an operation was needed within the next few days, if not, there would be major tissue necrosis on the wrist and palms, the consequences of which, it goes without saying, would be catastrophic.

When probing into the appropriate way to tackle the problem, the doctors would only say that the surgery would require general anesthesia and screws to reset the bones, and that the recovery period would be about three months.

The emotionally unprepared young man was frightened to the very marrow of his bones, so he began asking around if there was any other way. He got wind of the fact that the bone-setting techniques of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) could work wonders, and so he set out to find a Chinese medicine clinic in his area. The Chinese doctor looked dutifully over all the X-rays, theorizing that massage therapy may be the answer. But unfortunately, due to local red tape governing what treatments were possible to administer in the area, at his clinic only acupuncture and moxibustion therapies were allowed. Bone resetting was beyond the “scope of treatment” at his clinic. The young man was desperate, and could only turn to his father, my friend, back in China and ask if he could locate the right Chinese Medicine doctor by pulling some strings in Beijing, and if so, the young man planned to purchase a plane ticket to fly back for immediate treatment.

After receiving the call, the first thing the father did was to solicit my advice. I actually did know of a friend working in a hospital, and had the X-rays sent to him. He immediately and enthusiastically referred the case to an orthopedic specialist. No one could have imagined that, after looking over the X-ray film, the specialist reached a conclusion same as the Western medicine doctor: the bone could not be reset through massage, and surgery was necessary. He also questioned if the patient’s injury had happened in the United States, a place of more advanced surgical technology, why not perform the treatment there?

Even with the negative answer, my friend was not disheartened, he asked for a referral and was given the name and contact information of an elderly TCM specialist of legendary skill, who, as the story goes, had studied the art of setting fractures since his youth. When he got in contact with the doctor, he was told that the dislocation could be healed through tui na massage, and that it was actually not a major problem. He asked if the doctor would like to see the X-rays, but the old man said that he needed to see and actually touch the patient before coming to any conclusions.

My friend felt very conflicted. What if his son made a long-haul journey ofthousands of miles but ultimately couldn’t be treated? Then he would still have to return back to the US for the operation. Wouldn’t this exacerbate his condition?

That night my friend talked things over with his son, who was clearly in low spirits. His colleagues had offered a lot of advice and helped pave the way for the wouldbe recovery, helping him find a Western medicine and a Chinese medicine doctor, but unfortunately after looking at the X-rays, they concurred that surgery would be the only way.

The young man’s wrist was in terrible agony, the pain radiated throughout his entire hand, he was taking pain medication day and night, but was still in horrible agony. My friend had to come to me again, hoping that I could help him make up his mind. I comforted him saying that there were many success stories with lunate dislocations on the TCM.

I advised him that, since there were so many details they were uncertain about in going back to China for treatment, it would be better to just go ahead and search out a local U.S. based TCM practitioner. If one could not be found, then it would be time to consider getting the surgery performed by a Western medicine doctor according to the precepts of Western medicine.

It’s no exaggeration to say that my opinion held considerable “sway.” That night at three o’clock in the morning, my friend’s phone rang. It was his son calling from the other side of the world where it was daytime, saying that he had finally found a good Chinese medicine clinic from ads in the local newspaper. After the X-rays were sent over, the clinic replied that they couldn’t treated his injury. But subsequently they referred him to a trusted Chinese medicine doctor whose skills and success rate were purportedly very high. It was worth a try.

The young man contacted the clinic immediately, and after looking over the X-rays, the doctor invited him to come in for treatment. The young man took the news with equal parts of assurance and incredulity. There had been so many doctors of both Chinese and Western medicine telling him that surgery was the only answer, yet this one man, this lone maverick doctor of TCM was so certain, and brimming with such infectious confidence.

Could he be trusted? Well, the young man’s mindset at this point was, “you’ve invested so much time and energy into this, why not take it as a last resort.” He went to see the doctor who, before doing anything else inserted needles into the young man’s arm from top to bottom. He said the injured area was terribly swollen and before they could talk about follow-up treatments, he needed to relax the muscles and open up the energy channels. While applying the needles, the doctor made small talk, mentioning that in his early years he had worked at a famous hospital in China, and later on settleddown in the United States.

“I’ve hardly done any of these boneresetting treatments after coming to the United States,” he quipped, “but when I was still in China, I had several cases almost every week.”

Just as the doctor finished setting the needles, the young man received a phone call from his father and the doctor scurried off to work with other patients.

About forty or fifty minutes later, the young man called back with miraculous news—the prolapsed bone had been successfully reset. The entire treatment was as follows:

First the needle treatments were administered, which created a numbing feeling and radiated mild electric shocks to help the painful swelling. About half an hour later the needles were removed, and the patient’s arm was stretched out flat while relaxing tui na massage was administered from the wrist down to the fingertips. The swelling was then pushed to the metacarpus. While this was going on, the wrist was relaxed and the bones loosened and released, while the cracking sound of loose bones was audible.

After continued massage, the young man was instructed to move his wrist upward and straighten his arm out horizontally, then to move his hand erect vertically with the palm facing up, with the doctor holding the injured area from the sides. He squeezed repeatedly—the last two times he had the young man squeeze his hand into a fist.

My friend said that the Chinese Medicine doctor really showed his boy something otherworldly that day. After the injury, due to the stiffness and swelling, his son couldn’t even move his wrist, palm or his fingers at all, let alone make a fist. However, the doctor told him not to be afraid and try his best to make the fist. The son clenched his teeth and tried his hardest, and sure enough, he could move his fingers and make a partial fist. Then, after another round of acupressure, the doctor said the bones were successfully reset. Afterward, there would be a few more follow-up sessions necessary to open up the energy channels and eliminate inflammation.

What looked to be an injury that would “require surgery”and would take three months to heal was actually just that simple to treat. In the modern internet-speak, he was able to “stumble upon” the perfect doctor for his case. That night he didn’t take any painkillers and slept the first good night’s sleep he’d had since the injury. I told my friend, for a TCM master, resetting a fractured lunate is not a very difficult technique, while practitioners of Chinese medicine are on the decline; there are still many masters left in the world to keep the art alive.

Afterward I continued following this case. A month later, my friend told me that his son’s wrist had completely healed, and after the doctors of Western medicine got the new X-rays, they were stunned.

(FromJiefang Daily. Translation: Chase Coulson)

▲Chinese cycle of generation of the five basic elements of the universe with hieroglyphs