EAST meets WEST

Even though the idea sounded great: having my scaphoid bone repaired by grafting a small piece of bone from the distal section of my radius and rerouting some blood vessels to the area to give more blood flow for healing, the process didn't necessarily work. 5 months after the surgery, the doctor says "hmmm, looks like the proximal end of the bone may not have healed. Good news the bone graft is still there and not degenerated, but I'm not sure what's going to occur. You may as well just use it, ride your bikes etc. and see what ensues in the future. worst case senario is that you will develope severe arthritis and have to deal with that later".

Oh great, I went through 5 months of frustration only to find maybe it didn't work? Oh well, such is life. In the meantime, the PT I was prescribed was Bull s**t and all I got out of it was a lot less $$$. So I decided to take another option.

I met with Dr. Thong Zhong, licsenced acupuncturist from China in his chinatown office and told him my story. "While your at it", I say, Can you do something for the severe arthritis I have in the knuckle of my middle finger that I got from an old rock climbing injury 7 years ago?" "Oh sure, that will be easy" Dr. Z says and he proceeds to inflict intense pain by sticking his fingers and pressing on tendons and joints with great glee. This acupressure is not for wimps, I think, as I am cringing trying not to wince to badly. Then comes the Moxsha. Special herbs are burned and passed ever so close to the skin warming up the areas. Just when you think it's all over he pulls out the needles....I hate to look as he sticks them strategically in my elbow, forearm, wrist, fingers and hand. If that weren't bad enough he then pulls out the electrical stimulator and places the electrodes on the needles and turns up the juice. I now can not only feel but see my muscles flickering as they pulse with the current. Oh man, I can't look. He leaves me in the room and I just have to sit still for 30 minutes. I have read the only poster on the wall addressing afflictions of the foot by now a hundred times so I find myself drifting off into a meditative state.
when he returns, he advises me to exercise and encouages me to "make more strong" as he is quite an advocate of sports. He listens with open ears when I tell him of bicycling and even though he cautions me to be careful, he get's a kick out of my bikes and can't believe how light they are (compared to the basic made in China bicycle).

So, is it working? Hard to say BUT my arm and wrist feels stronger, is still stiff but not quite as bad. The arthritic finger seems less inflamed, hurts less but still isn't "normal"...So for a while I will continue to get pummeled and stabbed and electically stimulated until I make no more progress. No matter what, I have seen better results so far with Dr. Z than traditional PT...