Wednesday, 9 September 2009

the farting turtle

suffering from back ache is a pain; given that most of my day consists on being in front of a computer or sitting down in meetings or driving my car around, i resort to my chinese men for help: the yoga teacher and the doctor
a couple of weeks ago, i went to the doctor and given that he had tried but the pain hadn't eased he asked me (his english vocabulary has a 100 words maxiumum) whether he could use the 'chinese balls'...ummm...all right (?)
i will confess as to not being too convinced about it, but by now i have learnt to trust the unknown and thought to myself that a medical procedure that is over 2000 years old had to have something!
so he brought this crytal balls, the size of a fist, opened in just one side; he entered a piece of cloth, burnt it and when the ball had no oxygen left, applied it directly to my back; the feeling is of someone pulling your skin incredibly tight
he proceded to do the same up to 6 or 7 balls throughout my back and left them for two or three minutes...while i was already feeling like a turtle
then he took them out one by one, each making a fairly similar noise to a fart...while i was by now feeling like a farting turtle!
as a result i had perfectly round bruise like marks in my back for a week, tho the best bit: the pain was gone!
chatting to friends who saw the perfectly round bruises, they weren't too convinced about this chinese idea of alleviating pain with pain, but in my experience, whether a physiotherapist or a chinese medicine doctor, if it works i'm in!

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