Acupunctured

"We all fared well," I wrote in my blog a little over a week ago, "But Highlands Roadrunner confesses that the twinge in that right knee became worse as eleven miles wore on."  Three days later, I tried running again, and could only go short distances before that same pain returned.  I knew these symptoms well; it was like meeting once again someone you really dislike, a truly disagreeable old acquaintance whose path you had hoped you would not cross again.

I spent a little time looking back through my blog and found that it was three years ago, not two, that I had first injured this knee by building that rock wall and hyper-flexing it.  For a few weeks after that, I had continued running in fits and starts until, in desperation, I had visited Dr. Sue Aery.  She treated the suspected tendon inflammation with deep-tissue massage, ultrasounds, and finally with acupuncture, a procedure about which I had been as skeptical as most westerners.  In traditional Chinese medicine, it is believed that "qi" or "chi" flows through pathways, or meridians, in the human body, accessible through hundreds of acupuncture points.  (My daily practice of Tai Chi for the past twenty years should have made me less skeptical).  Dr. Sue managed to reverse the damage, opening up the knee in some way that I cannot explain (but I am sure she can) to energy and blood flow and healing, empirical enough evidence for me.  Reading the progress of my recovery in my blog in the fall of 2015 made me much more optimistic.

Today I had my second treatment.  It's a little startling to look down and see those needles stuck all around my knee (which looks a little different than this knee I found pictured on the internet).

And today she must have turned the power up a little higher because it made it tingle and jump up and down a bit, like that involuntary patellar reflex from the doctor's little hammer.  Afterward, I went to the gym and lifted weights, and later in the day I walked for a mile in cool, light rain, trying through alternate exercise and difficult conditions to experience in some way that adversity that we runners thrive on when we train.

I had told Dr. Sue earlier, "I haven't run in six days and now I know what inactive people feel like all the time:  lethargic, tired, depressed, wanting to eat too much."  She laughed and nodded knowingly.

One more treatment Thursday and I will try running again.