Winston Lee L. Ac, Ph.D., KMD
Several years ago, while I was treating patients in San Jose, California, I treated a patient who came to see me with simple pain and then received a rapid operation, so I would like to introduce this case that prevented the worst.
On March 5, 2013, a 37-year-old male patient visited the San Jose branch of Jaseng Center, where I worked. He said that four days ago, he started to feel his neck was stiff, both hands were numb, and hands’ power was weak. He could not walk properly, and he seemed to lose strength in his legs also. Walking seemed very uncomfortable for me. The patient himself said that his neck muscles seemed not normal because he played a lot of golf recently, and he only wanted to receive acupuncture treatment to control the pain.
On his initial visit, I first performed a precise physical examination. As a result of the examination, it was suspected that the case should be completely different from the usual sprained neck or back and that something – most likely the spinal cord or nerve – had been damaged. Accordingly, the patient was strongly recommended that MRI scans be performed promptly to check for damage to the spinal cords in the cervical and lumbar vertebrae.
Eventually, the patient had an MRI scan on March 12 and confirmed the results, and there was a disc herniation at the lower back. Still, more severe than that, severe disc herniation and stenosis were found between C-spine 5 and 6, and severe nerve root compression was also found. Immediately afterward, he met a neurologist for consultation, and on March 27, emergency surgery was performed at Stanford University. Fortunately, the patient has been confirmed to be recovering after major surgery.
Dr. Susan Hansen MD, a neurologist who treated this patient said that my recommendation for an MRI scan and prompt follow-up could minimize the patient’s permanent nerve damage. She added that if the patient could not be diagnosed quickly and the MRI scan was late, he could have had severe nerve damage that led to irreducible half-body or general mass paralysis.
In this case, it can be said that it is an ideal East-West medicine cooperation case. An East-West collaboration is ideal when an east medicine doctor with sufficient knowledge of western medicine to accurately determine what diagnostic method is needed for the patient and which procedure or surgery is necessary so that the most appropriate specialist can be seen.
Again, I want to emphasize that the doctor’s priority when seeing the patient is to prevent the patient from permanent damage. It would be best if you always kept in mind that rather than hoping to see a dramatic effect and be a hero with your treatment, do your best to prevent the patient from falling into greater danger. As for the treatment, once I am convinced that the patient will not be at risk, I become to use all my knowledge and experience with confidence in the most appropriate treatment.
