Phlegm Misting the Orifices (or PMO, as I call it)

   My brother thought that the concept of "Phlegm Misting the Orifices" (or "PMO" if you are like me and gravitate towards acronyms) was really good fodder for jokes.  I told him that people with PMO often have a "slippery left distal" and that "their windows of perception are muddy" and that set off a big round of guffaws.  I admit, it is pretty hilarious to throw the term around when people act flat-out crazy.  We used it to describe a couple of the residents in my Dad's neighborhood in a retirement village in Ocala, Florida, and actually, it really, really describes a cousin of mine...... she is as PMO as they come.  

   But what does PMO mean?  Well, if you have Phlegm misting the orifices...  your windows of perception are muddy.  Like everything else in Chinese medicine, your windows of perception can be physical or emotional.  If your physical windows of perception are muddy, you might be deaf.  You aren't perceiving sounds the right way. You might be blind.  You aren't perceiving sights the right way.  You might have Alzheimer's disease, and can't perceive what happened ten minutes ago. 

 

   If your emotional orifices are muddy, you don't process the emotional reality of what is going on around you. Maybe your spouse is staying out all night,  comes home smelling of cologne that isn't yours, yells out a name that  yours in the middle of sex... and you are blind to the fact that he or she is cheating on you.  Or maybe your drug-crazed child steals hundreds of thousands of dollars from your father on his deathbed, yet you continue to see her as "a good girl." Or maybe you just talk and talk and talk for 45 minutes to your friend on the phone, and then tell her how very much you enjoyed the conversation, and it never registers with you that she said just  "hello." and "good-bye" and you said absolutely everything in between.  Maybe you are just black-out drunk - in which case you are both physically and emotionally PMO.  No matter which way the ball bounces, you aren't picking up on physical or emotional cues going on around you.

   So what brings me to this topic tonight?  I think it had a lot to do with the way the day went.  I decided long ago that there is phlegm misting the orifices of the collective unconscious in America, and it was totally reinforced today when I tried to pick up my Dad's prescriptions at the pharmacy.

First, there was a (thankfully) short period of time when we thought he no longer had prescription drug coverage.  For someone who takes 17 prescription drugs a day, one of which is Plavix, two more of which are insulins,  this would have bankrupt him by the end of April, if not by the end of the week.  (Turns out he IS covered, so we only need to worry about bankrupting Medicare, instead.)  Secondly, I picked up a prescription for some kind of solution that was supposed to help his amputated toe wound heal.  $83.  Turns out it is a mild bleach solution -  had I known in advance, I could've mixed the same thing up for 83 cents.  Thirdly, everyone I told this story to just clucked.  No outrage, no desire to go to the picket lines, no boycotting the pharmaceutical companies, nothing.  Just clucks.  Cluck, cluck, cluck.

Clear Phlegm America!  Wipe clean the windows of perception!

  .  Our problem in America, is not that people don't have insurance.  It is that :

#1: Without insurance, you cannot afford western medication.  It shouldn't cost a month's wages to treat a case of strep throat. 

#2. People will dicker and bargain for days over the price of a car, but never even ask the price of a knee replacement.  The fact that someone else pays for our medical treatment eliminates the very best benefits  of capitalism  from our health care system. 

#3: There are very few pharmaceutical medications that you should have to take "for the rest of your life".  Yet the statistics on medications that people take every day with no exit strategy in sight are staggering, and nobody thinks twice about it!!! 

     When I was put on blood pressure medication 12 years ago, it was with no exit strategy in sight.  I questioned my doctor about it and he looked at me as if I had three heads.  "How long should I take this?" I asked.   "Forever." I was told.  Well, do the math.  I was 38 at the time.  If I died at the young age of 72, at a copay of $30/month - $360 per year - that is $11,520 over a lifetime in medication alone.  Not counting the doctor visits to renew the prescription, the $$$$ out of pocket I had to pay for investigative studies when the beta-blockers I was taking  caused a heart arrhythmia........  Criminy.  

So, here we are, with poor Daddy, taking 17 medications for the rest of his life.  Who knows if it was actually the diabetes that led to all of this, or if a lot of his problems aren't drug-related..... once you mix three or more pharmaceuticals, there is no way to know how they interact with each other.  But in the eyes of a lot of  Americans, that is all right - no cause for concern, as long as someone else PAYS the BILLS - because there is a rampant case of drug-induced PMO going on right now..... 

Bye for now. 

    

   

Pain Management Article in Time Magazine

So.... This morning, I was perusing a March issue of Time Magazine and the article on Pain Management in it.  I was absolutely horrified by the article on herbal therapies.  The article mentioned that the only herbal remedy found to be effective for pain management was Thunder God Vine.  I absolutely feel the need to get on my soapbox about this article and this reference to Thunder God Vine.

First of all, Thunder God Vine (AKA Lei Gong Teng, or Tripterygii wilfordii radix) is listed in the Chinese Herbal Medicine Materia Medica as being "very toxic with many side effects."  I surely hope a lot of people who read this article are not actively searching out Thunder God Vine and I hope if they find it, responsible sales people won't sell it to them.  Our Materia Medica does not recommend its use because of the toxicity and low benefit-to-harm ratio. If one does choose to use it, the two bark layers must be removed and it must be cooked for at least three hours to reduce its toxicity.

Herbalists in the US would be wise to pay attention to the chinese way of prescribing herbs: Chinese herbs are most often prescribed in combinations, or formulas, that combine herbs in ways that minimize toxicity and synergistically maximize treatment effects.  The classical  Chinese herbal formulas in our  Formulary have been used for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years, with minimal or no side effects.

So there is a huge disparity between western research on chinese herbs and the way they are actually used by chinese medical practitioners.  What good does it even do to perform research on gingko as a single herb, and claim that  research shows it is ineffective, when it isn't meant to be used as a single herb in the first place?

I have a dream that one day somebody will have the money and the desire to research the effects of Chinese herbal formulas, instead of single herbs.  But I doubt that dream will be realized in my lifetime, since, in comparison to pharmaceuticals,  there is no real money to be made on herbal formulas.   Can't be patented, don't you know?  What a pity that so much of our health care system is based on what can make somebody rich, instead of what can make somebody well.

Okay, need to go clean my house so I am down off my soapbox for now.  I don't imagine I will stay there long.   I think I have a lot of social activism in me.

CELEBRATE!

Well, I was so busy celebrating that I almost forgot to post today with the good news!  I am now officially a licensed acupuncturist in the state of Georgia (and I will say there has been LESS than 300 acupuncturists licensed here, if you can believe it.)
Yes.  I picked that puppy up from downtown today in the midst of gale force winds.  Sunny, warm skies, but gale force winds.  I hear there's bad weather coming in.... guess Hell's mad that it wasn't able to deter me from this goal.
So many people have helped me.  So many people have offered up so much support in so many ways.  I can never thank you enough.  I would name you all by name but the list is endless.
My first patient as a licensed acupuncturist was my Dad!  How special is that?   He is my biggest fan and I am his.
So tonight, I feel very grateful and fortunate and lucky and happy to be alive!

Sunday Night Can't Sleep Musings

   My friend Angie Middleton just put up her website.  It is so fresh and clean and honest and beautiful, just like Angie is.  The website really matches her personality!  Her business is Angie's Acupuncture and it's in Gainesville, Florida.  Her domain name made me laugh... when we were students, her husband always told her she should name her business "Needle me, Angie!" and that is what she chose to use for her domain.  I think it is very clever and catchy.  In any case, Angie will give you a really extraordinary treatment if you go to her....she is wonderful in every way.
    Mark spent the day working on shelves and tables for my clinic.  What a help he is!  He has become quite the craftsman!  They are great and I am lucky that he is as excited about my business as I am.   Today, he picked up our first piece of store-bought furniture ... a desk to use for pulse-taking.  It is pretty funky and cool and I really love it!  It matches well with the furniture he has made.
   Things are moving right along and I guess they better be because opening day is not that far off!  I ordered business cards today, and some magnets, and a couple of t-shirts just to see how the quality of the t-shirts are with vista print.  Ordering the business cards was quite the job for someone who is as technologically challenged as I am.  I went on a supply-buying mission to Fayetteville and I won't be doing that often without other chores to do in that direction with gas at $4 a gallon.  I shouldn't have worked at all today, although I enjoyed what I did.  I told myself that Sundays would be as they should... a day of rest.  But I didn't rest.  And now I can't sleep.  Augh!  So I play with photo booth!

two heads are better than one

T