The Chinese Doctor: Healing Lyme Disease and Yoga

You don't tell me what is wrong with you, I tell you. Said the doctor smiling and in a sweet voice. That was new. After 46 days on antibiotics I was left in ruins, depleted of all energy and not even sure if healed from Lyme disease.

Dr. H. has a little shop in Manhattan filled with Chinese herbs he picks in China himself. He does not trust shipping.

Balancing Energies

My landlord recommended him. He said how he once could not walk because his right leg was acting up, and after 3 visits with Dr. H he was healed. I was sold. Wanted to meet him.  So about a week ago we ventured into Dr. H. office.  My first visit to NYC in ages.

The Visit

We started with the date of birth which he looked in an ancient book and told me, among other things, that my element is earth. I knew there had to be something behind the Blog being EarthYogi dot blogspot.

He took my pulse in the way the do it in Thailand or India, or China (not the American way).  He did not count anything but rather "felt" the serpent of my pulse with three fingers.  I read in a yoga book that it can indicate imbalances depending on which of the three fingers registers a higher or lower variation and on the quality of it.

He touched my hand and feet and pressed points.  Every point hurt. Badly.

He said things I did not know like (warning might be too much info) my pee was too yellow (which it was and I had blamed on vitamin C), that my energy was low and my body out of balance.  My kidneys and heart were giving me trouble. YES!

What about Lyme?  We asked.

And that is when he said something very wise that will definitely NOT go well with American doctors:

There is bacteria everywhere, people walk around with cancer cells every day, all the time, yet not everyone gets cancer.  A balanced body, a strong support system, does not allow bacteria to do anything.

I loan to be the female version of this

I thought about when I came back from Thailand 3 years ago.  I had spent the month at teacher training doing pranayama, asana, taking steam baths, infrared saunas, getting massages, swimming in the ocean, doing the internal cleansings almost every day (vaman, enemas, neti).

I was really healthy when I came back, it showed in the shinning of my eyes. Then of course came the punch of losing the job, home, re-invention of life, my father died. Some really good things came too.  But maybe the negative got to be a bit much.

When Dr. H. said that, I longed for health. For a balanced body.

He gave me about 6 different herbs. Some he makes, some he gets somewhere in the orient. all very exotic.  Some of them are little round pills I need to take in quantities of eight, three times a day.

They look pretty much like that, some of them at least

The first 3 days...

Were the worst 3 days of my life. I literally thought I was dying.

The transition from antibiotics to just herbs almost killed me, or so I thought, but I survived.  My energy went down, I was depressed and suicidal and on top of things I could not sleep or "medicate".

The Scare
One day I got scared. I could not sleep more than 4 hours at all, exactly the opposite of what the antibiotics had done.

I wondered if I could be on "withdrawal" from pharma, so I called him. He never used that word. "Withdrawal". Never. I told him I felt a pain that would move from my heart to my stomach, to my shoulders all day long. He listened.  He said I should give it a little more time.

Take some more of the sleeping herbs? No, just two as he had said on day one. Just more time.

Hmmm

But I cannot sleep!  Put your feet in hot water for 20 minutes before bed.

My Grandmother knew...

Feet in hot water before bed is what my grandmother used to do.

Practice

What practice? No asana no pranayama, not even reading! nothing.  The only focus is on healing.

I have, for the first time ever, done nothing but focus on being well.  Of course I do miss it and get jealous of all of you and your practices, but in a good way, the good jealousy.

I do take walks and stretch a little. But Primary Series plus intermediate to Laghu, as I knew it 8 weeks ago is gone.

I look at this video in awe, wonder who that is:

The one thing I have been practicing which you "could" call meditation, is being VERY aware of my body. What is happening. Where is it vibrating, how is my heart doing.

The punch line

Right before I was leaving he looked at me deep in thought and said:  "Don't do things you do not want to do".  It blew my mind. How did he know that for the first 40 years of my life I always tried to please everyone?