Dr. Na Zhai Clinic Acupuncture & Chinese Medicine

Bernice: From Despair to the Happiest Day of Her Life

 

For years, Bernice placed her faith in the American medical system.

She sought relief for a cascade of health problems: relentless weight gain, diabetes, aching back and legs, swollen feet, and a shoulder stiff with bursitis. Her mobility faded, punctuated by bouts of incontinence. Anxiety and a depressed mood clouded her days—a natural response, it seemed, to a life that had grown increasingly lackluster and confined.

Yet, despite her faithfulness, her health continued to decline. Her doctors could only offer a cocktail of medications to soften the misery of her symptoms, not a path to true improvement.

Bernice had been through it all. Pneumonia at a year old. A ruptured appendix at ten. A hysterectomy. Breast cancer. Terrible allergies until she was fifty.

"It's been one blasted thing after another," she said. "And so I was always going to doctors. Sometimes it helped and sometimes it didn't."

The Student Who Kept Recommending Dr. Na

Six years earlier, a former student of hers—she had been a school teacher—began speaking to her about Dr. Na. The student spoke of her very highly.

The student had become an acupuncturist herself. She took it up because of her son, who had hemophilia. She knew the value of this medicine firsthand.

The student recommended Dr. Na with such conviction, such warmth, that the recommendation stayed with Bernice for six years.

But Bernice dismissed the advice.

She feared being seen as strange or superstitious by her family and social circle. Like many, she held a quiet misconception about acupuncture. A lingering doubt whispered: If my regular doctors can't help, why would anyone else?

The Fall

Then came the morning that changed everything.

Reaching for support as she climbed her porch steps, Bernice missed and fell backward. She landed hard on a wrought-iron boot scraper. The impact violently jarred her lower back and hip.

The pain that followed was constant, unyielding, and lasted for over two years. It became the dark center of her world, accelerating all her other ailments at a frightening speed. A deep, dreadful ache in her spine imprisoned her, stealing what little mobility she had left.

She tried everything. She went to her regular doctor. She went to others. She went to a chiropractor.

The chiropractor did not help. On the second treatment, she got up and could not walk.

"I got up after the second treatment and I couldn't even walk," Bernice said. "They had to put a chair behind me."

"When I stood up off that machine, I could not move my legs not so much as a quarter of an inch, either foot. So I decided that was nonsense. I wasn't going to go there again. It might be permanent."

"I thought, You blockhead, go see Dr. Na."

The Turning Point

Then came another fall. She fell frontward. It made everything worse again.

The second fall happened in March. The first fall had happened in March two years before. She was terrified of March.

"I decided this March that I was going to go to bed because I fell in March two years ago and I fell in March last year," Bernice said. "And I thought, this year I don't want to risk falling again, so I'll just go to bed for the month."

Instead, she came to Dr. Na.

Finally, in the spring of 2004, despair outweighed fear. She could stand it no longer. Bernice made her first appointment with Dr. Na, hoping only for a slight easing of her back pain. Her expectations were carefully guarded.

What happened next astonished her.

A single acupuncture treatment erased the back pain that had tormented her for years.

"It was the happiest day of my life," she would later say.

For the first time, she left a doctor's office not just with a prescription, but with tangible relief and a lightness she had forgotten was possible.

One Problem After Another

Each visit to Dr. Na's office became a step toward reclaiming her life—a feeling she had never experienced in all her years of conventional care.

"Why hadn't I come to Dr. Na years before?" Bernice asked herself.

The back pain resolved first. Then came the other problems—and one by one, they cleared.

Her hip. Pain was shooting down her leg. She could hardly walk. She was using a cane. It took three or four treatments, but it cleared up.

"I hadn't had that pain in ages," she said.

Her prostatitis. A doctor had been telling her for a year that she had prostatitis, and she did not think it was right. Dr. Na took a look and treated it. It took about four times to clear up.

Her arm. She had seen another doctor for it. He told her to find the place where it hurt so he could give her a shot. But the trouble was, it was a different spot every time she felt it. Dr. Na treated it, and the pain went away.

The lump from the fall. After Dr. Na had gotten rid of most of the pain, Bernice fell again and developed a strange lump. It took two or three treatments to get rid of it.

"I can't feel that pain; now it's gone," she said.

The ridge on her lower back. She had pain on her left side, and she could feel a ridge—a lump where she had fallen on the boot scraper. Dr. Na treated that too.

Her urinary problems. Dr. Na gave her an herbal formula for her urine problems.

"I'm not sure whether it's possible to cure them, but they've certainly lessened their severity," Bernice said. "That's a big help."

Her coughs and colds. When Bernice started coughing during a visit and mentioned she was coming down with a cold, Dr. Na gave her an herbal formula called Cough Stuff. From that day on, whenever she felt a cough coming on, she took it. She has not needed any more pills for colds since.

Her sleep and mood. The herbal medicine that helped most with her mood was one Dr. Na called Serenity.

"Serenity is wonderful," Bernice said. "Not only am I going to sleep when I go to bed—I don't lie awake for a couple of hours like I did. But when I get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, when I get back to bed, I go to sleep right away. It's terrific. And there is no weird feeling in the morning."

The Outcome

"You got rid of the pain in my arm, in my leg," Bernice said. "And it just seems to be a miracle all the way around. I feel better than I felt five years before I retired—about fifteen years. Amazing! I can't say enough!"

"I can't tell you what a miracle it is—the changes that you've made in my health. I just—I feel good and I feel positive about life. I just do."

She reflects on what this medicine has meant to her.

"The thing about Chinese medicine is that you can feel yourself healing. When you leave the doctor with Western medicine, you've got a pill and the directions to take the pill. You go home and hope they'll work. Sometimes when they don't, they simply increase the dosage or change the pill. But you don't feel any better. When I leave now, I know I've been helped."

When she visited her regular doctor not long ago, he looked at her and said: "You look wonderful. You haven't looked good in ages."

She told him why. She told him about Dr. Na. He was quite pleased. He seemed to think it was a very good idea—particularly since the results had been so obvious to him immediately.

"I was an idiot for not going to her earlier," Bernice said.

What Bernice's Story Shows

Bernice held back for six years. She was afraid of what people would think. She doubted that anything outside her regular doctors could help her.

But her former student kept speaking about Dr. Na. The student spoke of her very highly. The student's son had hemophilia. Dr. Na had helped him. The recommendation was warm, sincere, and persistent. It stayed with Bernice for six years—until the pain became too much to bear.

Then she fell. She fell again. She was so afraid of falling a third time that she planned to stay in bed for an entire month. Instead, she came to Dr. Na.

After one treatment, the back pain was gone.

Then came the hip, the arm, the prostatitis, the lump, the ridge on her back, the urinary. problems, the coughs, the sleep, the mood. One problem after another, cleared.

Her own doctor noticed the change immediately.

She feels better than she felt fifteen years ago.

This is not a one-time result. This is the same protocol Dr. Na uses for patients with chronic pain, incontinence, sleep problems, and mood disorders. Because the treatment follows a pattern, it can be taught. Because it can be taught, it can be passed on.

This is the system Dr. Na built. This is what she offers.

And it began with a patient who waited six years—and then found the happiest day of her life.