I visited an acupuncturist the other day. A traditionalist with the Chinese meridians and whatnot. I didn’t realize those trained in the East had a “schtick”. Do you hear my amazement? Schtick, I tell you. First, he looks at my hands. Nails, fingers, general robustness. Palms next, then he takes my pulse. Not heart rate. Pulse. Then there’s my tongue– stick it out and try not to look silly. There’s other things, but I’ll skip to the schtick. He looks at me very sternly and says I have a conflict in my body. There’s an imbalance between my head and my constitution. I think too much, I read too much. My mind races at night. I don’t sleep well and I spend too much of my time indoors. He says this imbalance doesn’t affect me so much now because I’m young and healthy, but in ten years, watch out. I’m going to have trouble peeing, guaranteed. And that’s just the start. My qi (chi) is bad right around my middle. All that thinking is bad. All that jogging I had been doing was bad. Weightlifting is bad. Plus, I don’t drink enough water or the right kind of water. WHAT?
If I were going to persuade someone to hinge their future health on a fringe modality, then I would take the tack used by this man. And when I say fringe, I mean it. If you believe in acupuncture and its effectiveness, then great. It’ll probably work for you, but that’s the thing. You have to believe in it. I think the efficacy studies show that benefit rates rival that of placebo which is to say 1 out of 3 will find relief. 2 out of 3 won’t. When drugs are put through trial, they have to better this placebo rate in order to make it to market. Otherwise, you might as well take a sugar pill.
It’s a little frustrating. I like acupuncture. I like the idea of it. I’m not sure it wouldn’t work given the right condition, the right patient, the right doc. It all depends. Just because you have a herniated disc doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have surgery. Same thing here. Acupuncture could have helped me. Could have. But not this guy. Too many red flags. Not enough to walk out, but just enough to cancel after a good night’s sleep. Plus, a quick review with the boyfriend confirming the goofiness didn’t hurt.
Sometimes a good barometer of an interaction is how they qualify it. My thoughts on his theory were delivered with honest skepticism. I countered his claim that I didn’t sleep well. I sleep great. Especially when I’m not in pain (hint, hint). He seemed to think my attitude was a result of having presented all his facts in a way that overwhelmed me. He had confused me.
Ohhh, I was confused– What is going on? I was confused all right. I thought paternalism was a Western attribute. If you’re puncturing tissues in the meridian, wouldn’t it behoove you to know a little about the underlying structures and tissues? Their names at least? Maybe having more than a superficial knowledge of the more allopathic therapies?
I’m snarking on the man, I am. I have to say I don’t think that kind of certitude is usually present in a healer. There’s something to be said for doubt, for exploration, for listening to the patient. To put forth a position, but heed the contraindications. I had wanted to impress upon him the benefits I had gotten from trigger point injections but he appeared impatient. Trigger points, BTW, are not exactly allopathic. If anything, they’re more fringe than acupuncture. But it worked for me and that’s the thing. If my direct experience demonstates a significant and positive effect, I have to revise my doubt. It’s called proof. When I find proof, I like to air it. It’s called discourse.
I don’t think he was much a fan of discourse. He patiently bore me out, interrupting only a couple times, and then deciding that my inability to embrace his view was a result of having given me too much too soon. It was too Eastern for me. Clearly, I was a Westerner. How could I comprehend the holistic gestalt of a culture so ancient, so wise, so mystical practically? My ignorance was understandable.
After all of it, an unkind thought occurred to me. I thought, isn’t that a passive-aggressive move? To claim my comprehension falls short implies that his logic could still hold water. It’s a point of sophistry ably demonstrated in the film Thank You For Smoking. Dad and son take a hypothetical argument. Which is the better flavor: Vanilla or chocolate? Son takes vanilla. Dad argues chocolate is the best, but people should have choices. What about strawberry? So the son cogently points out he hasn’t proved chocolate is better than vanilla. Dad says, that’s not the point. You win the audience, you win the argument. And that’s what old Mr. Acupuncture did. Except I was the audience. Telling me his Eastern logic is too lofty for the scrutiny of Western intelligence doesn’t exactly win me over.
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