My lower back has been out of whack for the past 3 days and I’m not sure why. It may be because I have to contort myself into an awkward position every morning to see into my bathroom mirror, which could have aggravated my already weak lower back. It makes sense, because my right hip hurts too and I’m constantly twisting to the right. Anyway, I decided to go to the Chinese medicine place on Shamian Island to have a doctor “massage” it for me. More like pummel every place that hurts with a vengeance.
This time the doctor rubbed a lot of yaojiu on my back in between assaults. Yaojiu is Chinese medicinal herbs soaked in liquor, which supposedly brings out different properties in the herbs; I hear old people like to drink it. Sometimes animals are soaked in liquor for years for the same purpose, like snakes and rats. Can you imagine a big jar of liquor filled with ten year old rats? I hope the kind I got today was of a more benign variety…
While I was lying there, we got to talking about how I don’t like the way acupuncture feels. It seems that I’m one of the few people who think acupuncture hurts. Hurt might be the wrong word, but I couldn’t think of a better one in Chinese. I just don’t like the idea of something so small entering my body and messing with my entire system, like when they twist the needle and the whole left side of your body suddenly feels like it’s on fire. That freaks me out! The doc asked if I’d ever tried cupping, to which I replied that I got one cup put on the back of my knee during one of my three previous acupuncture sessions. He said that I could try it, because it might help by getting the stagnant blood moving deep in my back. I figured, sure why not? I’ll try anything that might help me out.
The cups were made of bamboo and unevenly sized. The doctor heated the inside and outside of the cup with flames to create suction, then placed them on my back. At first he only used two and moved them around quickly, like a shell game. After doing this for a few minutes and gradually adding more cups, he reheated all five cups and placed them in a circle on my lower back. I could feel all of my blood, skin and fat being sucked up into the cup after about five minutes. It was definitely a weird feeling, but at least it didn’t hurt. After he ripped the cups off my back had a lot of light red circular markings on it and five dark purple circular bruises… pretty gross looking. If this makes my back feel better, I would definitely be willing to do it again despite the nasty bruises!
