Adventures in Acupuncture

We have this great health insurance here in Korea, and we've only used it once. Granted, it's a good thing we haven't used it more, but I keep thinking of how expensive it will be to have anything done when go back to the states, and so I keep assessing myself for signs of injury just so I can go while I'm here. We heard from a friend that acupuncture was covered under our insurance, and we'd been pondering it for a while. Joe wanted to go for his knees, and I wanted to go just to see what it was all about. Then, I got some sort of shoulder injury probably from excessive, hard-core yoga :), so we decided to bite the bullet and go.

We found Dr. Bo-Moon Choi on a list of English-speaking Oriental Medicine Clinics. We knew nothing about her other than her clinic was near where we were picking up our rental car for that weekend's excursion to see cherry blossoms in a nearby town.

Her office is on the 2nd floor, and after walking up a narrow passageway of stairs, we entered her clinic. Walking in was like walking into a spa: calming music played, a rectangle of colorful stones decorated the middle of the waiting room floor, herbs sat in jars on sparklingly clean shelves, the air smelled of earthy, rooty, sweet incense, and the two receptionists were fresh-faced and smiley.

We took our shoes off at the door, and put on a pair of slippers among the many scattered there. After handing over our insurance cards and waiting all of 1.2 minutes, Dr. Choi herself greeted us with a smile and ushered us into her office. She said her English was bad, but it was wonderful. She had called her sister (who supposedly spoke better English than she) to come in to the office just to help translate to us.

After telling her why we had come in (knees for Joe, shoulder for me), she put her fingers on my wrist and listened to my pulse for a good two minutes, eyes closed. It was so calming--her touch, the music, the incense. When she opened her eyes, she looked at me and proceeded to name every issue that I have: stomach problems, neck tension, and crappy circulation to my hands and feet. I wanted so badly to whip my head around to Joe, who was sitting behind me, and mouth "holy shit", but I was mesmerized by Dr. Choi. I hadn't told her anything about any of those issues she pinpointed. I'm pretty sure she's a mind-reader.

She led me into a back room, while Joe waited, and told me to lay down on a marble-looking heated bed. With a pillow under my head and another under my knees, Dr. Choi brought a little tray of needles to my side, felt my pulse again, and then moved her hands over me, up and down my body. I knew I was supposed to be relaxing, but I was too fascinated by what she was doing--my eyes followed her every movement. Then she took a needle and tapped it into my head. So, I figured that since my shoulder was the problem, the needles would go in the shoulder. Nope. Head. Hand. Foot. Knee. Anyone that says acupuncture doesn't hurt or that "you feel nothing" is a liar. It's not excruciating or anything and the feeling doesn't really last, but needles are still going into your skin, my friends. The hand and foot hurt the most, but after the initial tingling and discomfort, I settled into it. One of Dr. Choi's helpers laid a hot stone on my belly and turned a heat lamp on my feet. Then they both went off to see to Joe.

I was supposed to lay there for 20 minutes. At about the 10 minute mark, I kind of freaked out. I felt hot all over and felt like I might puke. Joe called the Dr. over for me, and she took the needles out immediately. Then she felt my pulse again. Then she asked if I feel nervous in enclosed spaces. Yup. She hummed to me for a bit and calmed me down. She told me there was another treatment she could do with heat. She showed me this cardboard thing that had rows of what looked to be the ends of cigarettes on it. She put stickers on the places of my arm that really hurt, and then snapped off the smoldering cigarette butt things and stuck them to the stickers. For one brief, break-with-reality moment before she put them on, I was totally convinced that she was going to put the burning side onto my skin. Thankfully, no. As they burned down, the heat got more intense and penetrated the muscle. They gave off this very pungent, very heady smell, not totally unlike cigarettes. They felt great. Then she gave me an awesome heat pack for my shoulder. Meanwhile, Joe got his needles put in (no problems with him...just total bliss) and cigarette butt heat treatment.

After we were both done, she told us that I would need to come back two more times for my shoulder, and that because Joe has "old man knees", he'd need to come back more often. The whole visit cost us about $11.

We've gone back two times since then, and my experiences have just gotten better. No freak-outs, no panic attacks. Just pure, peaceful bliss. She even gave me some herbs to boil for nervousness, totally free. Each time we go back, she feels our pulses and tells us exactly what's going on in our bodies. Every time she does it, it blows my mind. The 2nd time she said I had a headache and my mouth was dry. Yup, yup. This last time, she said my tummy had been upset. Yup. And Joe? Well, his knees are still old man knees. The last two visits cost a whopping total of $8.

Let me say this: Korean health insurance is amazing. Granted, I don't have dental coverage, but still a check-up and x-rays are only $10, and a cleaning only $40. So, not a big deal.

And here's something else: my experience with this doctor has been nothing but soothing. I'm sure there are terrible doctors in Korea who are horrible and uncaring and sadistic, but that has not been our experience at all. Each time I've seen Dr. Choi's sweet, bespeckled face with her cute 1920s bob, I wonder why my previous doctor in Chicago, Dr. Slagface, was always so cold and so resistant to listening to what I had to say. After hearing that I was having pretty upsetting tummy problems, Dr. Slagface once famously nodded and told me to "feel better" as she ushered me out of her office. Neat. Glad I paid a co-pay for that visit.