Curing a Cold the Old-Fashioned Way. Really Old-Fashioned.

So, I just got back to my job from a trip to the acupuncturist. He's just a couple blocks away so I had hoped that I'd be gone a little over an hour, but he felt my condition was relatively severe and needed pretty aggressive treatment, so I was actually gone for two hours and fifteen minutes. Oh well.

Anyway, he started by using these heated glass bowls on my back, which, when inverted, act like a vacuum and increase blood flow and expel toxins and pathogens. It sort of felt like having giant clothespins up and down my back. Kinda good and yet kinda not. I bruise easily, so I'm dying to see what my back looks like when I get home. If it's good I'll take a picture. I'm envisioning something like a giant octopus attack.

So those came off and then he put some needles in my back and left me there for another ten minutes or so, and then he flipped me over and poked me in all my favorite places: eyebrows, the cheeks over the sinus passages, the muscle between the thumb and index finger, a couple places on my feet, a couple of abdomen points, the "lung" points near the armpits, and last, but not least, one in the soft spot at the bottom of the throat right over the ribcage.

Now, with me, when I have acupuncture to open up the sinuses, it's like turning on a faucet. All that junk starts to just slide right out and down the throat. Yeah, it's gross. But it's amazing!

Unfortunately, because I was lying down, at one point a big wad of crud got stuck right in the back of my throat, prompting a rather violent coughing attack. Oh, my friends, you don't know joy until you're coughing your head off with a needle jammed in under your adam's apple, among other places. Ow.

So the doctor came in and said, wryly, "Well, that doesn't sound right." He went to the needles in my cheeks, arms, hands and feet and sort of twisted them around, in the same way you'd fiddle with knobs on a stereo to get better reception. Then, having set me to "don't cough," he left me for a few more minutes.

Once that was done, he gave me my prescriptions:

Fritillaria and Pinellia Syrup: 1 tsp. 3-4 times a day

Er Chen Wan: 5-6 tablets twice a day

Minor Bluegreen Dragon: 2 tablets 3 times a day

N-acetyl cysteine: 1-2 tablets once daily

Pure licorice: 1 dropperful three times a day

Hot cocoa, as needed, to soothe cough. No, really. The real stuff, though, not that ultra-processed Swiss Miss crap that's more caca than cocoa. My mom will flip because she swears that chocolate is a virus' best friend. I asked the doctor about that and he said, "What? That's ridiculous."

See...wouldn't you rather go to a doctor who prescribes hot chocolate than some disgusting laboratory chemical?