Dr. Na Zhai Clinic Acupuncture & Chinese Medicine

Pat Breaks Out of the Thick Fog of Exhaustion

 

Pat was 42 years old when the exhaustion began.

It was not ordinary tiredness. It was a complete draining of energy, every single day. She was sleeping ten to fourteen hours a night. She woke up late morning and still felt exhausted. Basic tasks became overwhelming. Then came the other symptoms: back pain, water retention in her legs, hypothyroidism, and depression.

She was incapacitated. She could barely get out of bed.

The Maze

Pat embarked on a journey through the medical system. She saw physician after physician in central Illinois. They ran X-rays, MRI scans, and laboratory tests. Everything came back normal. No abnormalities. No explanation.

Some doctors suggested chronic fatigue syndrome—CFS. A name. That gave her hope. But the hope faded when she learned the prognosis: no identifiable cause, no known cure.

She went to the Mayo Clinic. They spent a week running tests. The result was the same: uncertainty, no answers.

"The medical community has no clue to offer people with CFS," Pat said. "The only offer they could give me was to get used to it."

She was sent to a psychiatrist. Antidepressants were prescribed. They did not work. The psychiatrist sent her back to her regular doctor. She bounced between the medical and psychiatric communities for a long time.

Eventually, she found a doctor who prescribed her twenty-one different drugs to manage her symptoms. With the medication dulling her discomfort, she could marginally function. But she was not living. She was surviving.

The Turning Point

One morning, Pat woke up with excruciating back pain. It was worse than anything she had experienced. Her back was out of alignment. The pain was unbearable.

She mentioned it to a few friends. They told her about Dr. Na, who had recently come to town. She practiced acupuncture and herbal medicine. They suggested Pat give her a try.

Pat called. She got an appointment.

The Treatment

Dr. Na concluded that Pat's back pain, due to its location on her lower back, was originating from her kidneys. She immediately gave Pat an acupuncture treatment along the lower spine—to stimulate the release of the body's natural painkilling chemicals and to promote healing to the area.

After the second visit, Pat reported that her back pain was 80% better.

It was at that point that Pat revealed the rest of her health problems. She entrusted her care completely to Dr. Na.

Dr. Na told her: I can cure you. But you have to trust me.

Pat was astonished to learn that her severe exhaustion, leg edema, and hypothyroidism symptoms were all connected to her kidney trouble. As Dr. Na explained, the kidneys manage a whole host of complex physical functions—controlling the body's water levels, governing the urinary tract, maintaining reproductive and growth processes, and regulating hormone secretion from the thyroid, pituitary, and adrenal glands.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the kidneys perform these delicate operations through a system of balance—the concept of yin and yang. When there is a deficiency in either yin, yang, or both, a multitude of health problems emerge. Pat's symptoms fit the profile for kidney yang deficiency: physical weakness, exhaustion, aching in the lower back, coldness in the limbs, edema, and hypothyroidism.

Dr. Na's first few treatments were directed at strengthening Pat's whole body—acupuncture stimulation that empowered the body's own healing mechanisms.

In subsequent visits, she prescribed Pat an herbal remedy to tonify the kidney yang functions, as well as an herbal Qi remedy that invigorated both the yin and yang strength of the kidneys.

She also restored Pat's kidney health in concert with the bladder, the kidneys' organ partner. Placing fine acupuncture needles along the kidney and bladder meridians, she stimulated the flow of energy and fluids to both organs.

The Drug Phase-Out

Over the next several months, Pat received acupuncture treatments and herbs. The initial phase required two visits for two weeks, then one treatment per week, then one treatment every other week.

When Dr. Na determined that Pat was physically strong enough, she had her begin weaning herself away from her twenty-one different prescription drugs—one at a time.

Although scared to do so at first, Pat followed through. She gradually eliminated all of the drugs that had dominated her life for so long.

The Outcome

Pat was tremendously pleased with the steady decrease in her exhaustion, back pain, water retention, and other symptoms.

At the end of six months, she jubilantly reported:

"My life has moved forward in incredible leaps. I can function again! I can do things! I feel normal! I have energy! I get up regularly, refreshed, and ready for the whole day. It's great! And I'm no longer taking any pills! All I take are a vitamin and calcium. All the rest are gone!"

Pat emerged from a dismal fog of exhaustion and suffering into a life of clear, blue skies.

She has been working full-time as a travel agency manager for almost ten years since completing her treatment program with Dr. Na.

Ironically, she says she will always be thankful for the severe back pain episode that brought her to Dr. Na. It led her to her path of healing.