Posted by Larry Hoover on June 6, 2006, at 12:18:50
In reply to Re: Mr. Hoover, posted by honeybee on May 30, 2006, at 17:21:30
> Fantastic!
>
> Larry, I didn't know that you'd decided to go to a TCM practitioner (I've been literally in the boonies for the last two weeks, without internet access). Please do share what your results are.Well, it kind of just happened, in a karmic muse kind of way. It's been percolating around in my brain for quite a while, and I got good vibes off this one store. Turns out, my vibe meter was working perfectly.
I don't know what my diagnosis is, but he was adamant that I had too much heat in my liver. It was a very important thing. There was something else about damp, but I didn't really need to know that. What I needed to know was if he could help me, and he very confidently said that he could.
I think I mentioned how he assessed me for $10, and gave me this great sack of herbs and roots for $66. Already a bargoon, stacked up against the $500+ it cost me just to try Topamax.
The tea is just the yuckiest stuff. Almost gag material.
I went down for a third visit on Sunday. He did another acupuncture, and set me up with a new batch of herbs. It is very powerful medicine, indeed. I doubt I could separate the effects, and that is precisely what he said. The acupuncture draws the heat, and "make the tea work better".
So, I'm now at day 15. My head is clearing. My energy is becoming extraordinary. I haven't felt this vigor in a long time. My memory is starting to work again. It is good.
What I'm taking is:
Tea #1 (first 14 days)
ginjiao
dangqui
bashao dangshen
faling
jixieteng
danshen xiangtu
chuadan
jianghuo
jianghuang shangzhi
guizhiI have no idea if I "doubled up" those words right, or, single spaced them properly. It is not clear, his English writing. His prescription was in pictographs.....17 figures.
Tea #2 (next 14 days)
jinyinhua
huangqi
jixueteng tutuling
baijili kushen
baixianpi beizhichao
fangfeng
chishao
baishao
shengdi
xuanshen
dituzhi
baizhu danshenAgain, I have not made any efforts to verify that I've even transcribed this correctly. The second batch of tea only cost $56, and the acupuncture is $30. He is a master of the art of acupuncture. I don't know how I know, but I do.
TCM is very different than our medicine. Herbs are never used alone. They all have companions, and different companions for different uses. We want to isolate the "active ingredient", and give it in pure form. What arrogance! We err perhaps by leaving anything out, let alone combining with companions.
When you cook, you use a bouquet garni. Five-spice powder. Curry powder. Why on Earth would medicinal herbs be any different than that? Would you ever cook a whole meal with just black pepper in it? Or, use the extracted "active ingredient" piperine? Good grief.
> Acupuncutre has been a godsend for me (and I'm on no antidepressants, nearly at all) and literally punch me back into functionality after every treatment. Though I was doing herbal blend formulas, I was told by an expert at a Grand Rounds I participated in (for depression) at an acupuncture school, that my situation was so complicated, that I needed someone vastly more experienced that the people I was seeing at a teaching clinic and that my herbal treatment would likely need to be tailored more to my condition.
Everything must be tailored.
> Please share the herbs that you're on, your TCM diagnosis (and hey, if you show me yours, I'll show you mine, I've got a doozy of one), and so on.I've told you all I know. If anyone has a sense of how to transliterate those herbs into more commonly used Western names, I'd appreciate a heads-up.
> So glad that you're going. Hope that it coaxes you in the right direction.
More like propelling me.
> And hope you had fun at the Rock-n-Roll show. See you're a good Dad, letting your son go to one. I have fond memories of going to a Starship/Outfield show in my early teens with a friend and her mom. It was exhilarating, even if she didn't like the music.We had a hoot. Good head-banging goin' on.
And Lar has both feet on the ground. Even with all the stressors in my life, the pain, my parents......even with those, the dude can coax his guitar, get things done. I have a sense that Lar might soon be more visible, out there, than he has ever been before.
Goddess willing.
Lar
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:648650
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20060601/msgs/653632.html