Jul 26, 2008

TCM diagnosis

The sinseh is a plump and petite-size woman. When she opens her mouth, she is no way near the choice of word as 'small'. A typical traditionally old-school rough woman packaged in a pair of modern office 2-piece, sitting on a 6 feet manager desk with numerous photos of herself posing with some of the members of the high society hung up being her office high-back chair. The biggest photo is one of her posing with Tengku Adnan, ex Tourism Minister. Adjacent to the left side of her desk sits a half-boiled looking la la mooi with a knitted snow cap (in a hot sunny afternoon??) A short and stout man standing nearby in a slip bag resembles pirated DVD selling was her husband which we only found out at the end of the consultation. Our first impression: we have stepped into a Chinese gypsy cart.

While still talking (loudly) with her other out-going patient, she signaled me to rest my hand on a arm-pillow. She started 'feeling' my pulse the minute i sat down. She didn't even fact-find like any other doctors. Finally, she stopped talking and concentrating 'feeling' my pulses in various locations on my right palm. But not into 15 seconds she had to answer a call on her mobile phone. After that her husband chatted with her about being diagnosed a successful conception of a patient which was reconfirmed by a test kit. A pariah scene, sorry, can't help it, these so-called traditional practitioners never fail to awe us with their unprofessional approach.

"Your left side ovary is not very good", her first diagnosis. Pulse-touching continued. "Lots of luekorrhea in your womb, that's why implantation fail, too slippery." Ok, now we are talking. I told her that i am usually quite 'dry', kinda contradicting her diagnosis. She did not answer that but just mentioned "the luekorrhea are building up in the womb and i will help you to drain it back to normal." If i am not having a big 'O' on my mouth then i must be severely brain retarded". Without wasting my precious time, i went ahead to present my hypothyroid problem, an English word that i have no translation at all. She seemed to understand clearly when i explain hypothyroid as "Low". She even went, unprovoked, sharing who and who patients also a thyroid case and how she cured her and successfully birth the first baby after seven years trying. Ok, the assurance testimony did help to lift her grade on my judgement scale a little. She went on and on boasting how she has helped numerous couples conceived and some even had twins. Ok, i admit, this cheap thrill did helped my patience sitting through with this this this....whatever. She was like a saleswoman suddenly. 

I told her about my first take of clomiphene and she went into a small fright of rage over the doctor who dared to prescribe me 2 types of hormone treatment at one go. She went on repeating how dangerous that my regular doctor to put me at high risk of getting female cancerous diseases. She even said i better not successful in conceiving this month because such big clash of 2 hormone treatments may cause the baby to be born with 'white dots' in the heart????? What's that? To add more horror into her statement, she chose 'possible retardation'. Whoaa!!! Hold on lady. If its really that bad i am sure my Western-educated doctor would have studied in her degree. I would have read about it in my hundreds of web-searches. But i wouldn't conclude it to be preposterous as yet, TCM might have some ancient observations that i did not googled. Give her the benefit of a doubt. No harm to me to listen anyway.

Finally she calmed down and entered her final diagnosis that she is to treat my leukorrhea now and to wean off my dependency on western thyrosine medications. Ok, there's one convicting solution. At least no more asking us to spend another RM1000 to test everything again as instructed by the 'other' fertility TCM doctors previously. 

Next Dino dad's turn. The pulse-reading revealed that he has a more urgent problem with bubble urine than fertility issue. Aaarhhh........ that's we are really talking now. This is one symptom we did not mentioned at all. She discovered it by pressing on pulse. She said if not treated, later can be advanced to kidney failure resulting in kidney dialysis. Bubble urine indicated high acidity. Dino dad is to ban from eating pork, chicken, cabbage and soya sauce. To reduce salt intake tremendously. Well, the salt thingy contradicted the fact that Dino dad is no fan of salty food at all. But the bubble-urine is so true happening. 

Mrs Sinseh assured Dino dad that his fertility is not an issue at all. His just having short-tailed sperms can't swim well. Whoah! Imagine she can feel that through pulse, no semen sample produced under microscope....truly sci-fi, don't you think. Wait, let me laugh first....hahahahahahahaha. 

So, 2 different bottles of herb powder given to each of us and the bill is an exorbitant RM350. Luckily Dino dad stuffed RM400 instead of the initial thought of RM300. It better work.

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