The Physician of Traditional Medicine Returns from Murim - Chapter 108

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 108

Unlike Park Seon-yun who had appeared dressed in a suit and being called “young master,” Chairman Choi Gwi-jae came to the Traditional Korean Medicine Clinic quietly.

Although a middle-aged woman presumed to be his driver accompanied him, since elderly people of his age usually travel with children or caregivers, it wasn’t particularly conspicuous.

Since he seemed to not want to reveal his identity, I didn’t give any hints to the staff either.

After a considerable wait, Chairman Choi Gwi-jae entered my examination room.

“Chairman, how have you been? Your adductor muscles have improved significantly!”

Just from watching his walking posture, the improvement was clearly visible.

When I first met him, he had difficulty even getting up from bed, and even right after acupuncture treatment, he walked somewhat awkwardly, but now his gait was completely stable.

“Yes, it’s all thanks to you, Clinic Director. Until yesterday, I felt somewhat stiff when spreading my legs, but now there’s no problem.”

“Please lie down over here. Let me press and check.”

Press.

I checked the condition of his muscles through palpation.

Although some tension remained, it seemed like one more treatment today would be enough to fully relax the muscles.

The ligament recovery was also much faster than I had worried about.

“After today’s treatment, walking should be fine for you. Please rest from running for at least another week.”

“That long? It hardly hurts anymore.”

“Even with a sprained ankle, you need to rest for a week, and this involved damage to larger muscles and ligaments.”

“Sigh, understood. It’s frustrating, but it can’t be helped. I’ll do as you say, Clinic Director.”

Chairman Choi Gwi-jae slowly nodded his head.

“But besides this pain, it seems like you have other concerns. Am I right?”

What he had tried to say during the house call three days ago was bothering me, so I brought it up.

Then Chairman Choi Gwi-jae let out a deep sigh.

“If it’s nothing, then it’s nothing, but if it’s a concern, then it would be a concern.”

“Is it a chronic condition? There might be areas where I can help, so please tell me.”

After hesitating for a moment, Chairman Choi Gwi-jae pointed to his lower abdomen and spoke.

“Actually, … when I run, urine leaks out little by little.”

Oh my.

I wondered what the problem was, and it’s urinary incontinence?

Urinary incontinence is a condition where urine leaks out little by little regardless of one’s will, and while it seems like nothing serious, it’s quite a bothersome condition.

Urinary incontinence occurs more in women than men, and the prevalence increases with age, with nearly 40% of women experiencing this symptom.

“It mainly occurs when pressure is applied to your abdomen, like during running, jumping rope, or sneezing, right?”

“Yes.”

“And you don’t usually have cases where urine leaks before you can get to the restroom when you urgently need to urinate.”

“I don’t think that’s ever happened.”

“Do you ever wake up at night wanting to urinate, or find your underwear wet when you wake up in the morning?”

“… Waking up happens very occasionally? It’s not common.”

“Then I can diagnose this as stress urinary incontinence.”

There are mainly two types of urinary incontinence: stress urinary incontinence and urge urinary incontinence.

I explained stress urinary incontinence to Chairman Choi Gwi-jae.

“You’ve probably heard of this, but when pressure is applied to the abdomen like during running, and the urethral sphincter can’t withstand it causing slight urine leakage, we call this stress urinary incontinence.”

“Yes.”

Most middle-aged women’s urinary incontinence falls into this category.

In contrast, urge urinary incontinence is a symptom where one cannot hold the urge to urinate and it suddenly leaks out, which is related to the central nervous system.

Additionally, there’s the rare overflow urinary incontinence where the urinary outlet doesn’t open due to urethritis and such, causing the bladder to fill up completely and overflow.

“There are various causes – childbirth, aging, inflammation, and so on. When the tissues below the bladder or pelvic floor muscles are damaged, the bladder’s position can change, and the urethral sphincter weakens. It’s a more common condition than you’d think, but it’s quite embarrassing to talk about while significantly reducing quality of life.”

“That’s true. I suppose there’s nothing to be done when you get old.”

“If there are no other factors, it’s true that muscles have weakened with age, but that doesn’t mean there are no solutions.”

Only then did Chairman Choi Gwi-jae’s eyes brighten a little.

I hadn’t said a single word about treatment being impossible.

“Before that, let me ask if you have any underlying conditions. You don’t have a history of neurological diseases like stroke, meningitis, or myelitis, right?”

“No.”

“Please let me know if you’ve had any other surgeries or are taking any medications. Your kidney function is normal on blood tests, right?”

Choi Gwi-jae shook his head.

“I’ve had two cesarean sections, and I don’t take any medications. I was once warned to be careful about my blood sugar, but I’m managing it through diet without diabetes medication.”

No metabolic diseases at that age?

I couldn’t help but be amazed. In many ways, he wasn’t an ordinary person.

Diabetes, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia are the basic set, and arthritis medications are very common.

“The method I most recommend is combined treatment with herbal medicine and acupuncture. Acupuncture treatment is the main approach. We need to stimulate the Bladder Meridian of Foot-Taiyang to improve bladder function while coordinating the tension and relaxation states of the lower abdominal muscles. We’ll strengthen the stretched muscles through electroacupuncture treatment, and relax the over-tensed muscles from exercise.”

“Is the medicine also for strengthening bladder function?”

“Similar. We’ll use tonifying medicine and channel-guiding medicine. Channel-guiding means drawing strength to specific meridians. You can understand it as your body currently lacking energy to supply nutrients throughout, so there’s no strength reaching the pelvic floor muscles and urethral sphincter. The medicine and acupuncture help by providing energy while directing it to the bladder.”

After listening to my explanation and pondering something, Chairman Choi Gwi-jae spoke.

“Since my energy hasn’t dropped that much, the medicine isn’t essential, right?”

“That’s right. You’re also exercising diligently.”

“How long would it take to improve with that treatment?”

“Acupuncture treatment every other day, taking the medicine properly, and doing Kegel exercises would be good. With this approach, in my experience, over 50% showed improvement.”

“So it was ineffective for half the patients.”

“Ah, that was a misleading expression. Everyone showed over 50% improvement in discomfort. This applies specifically to stress urinary incontinence.”

It’s a somewhat challenging condition, but since the pathology is clear, effects definitely appear with consistent treatment.

Especially since I can accurately needle the weakened muscles to strengthen them, the temporary effects are immediate.

To maintain it, muscles need to be built through exercise… but usually after seeing effects in 3-4 treatments, people don’t want to return to their previous state and do Kegel exercises quite diligently.

“Have you heard of Kegel exercises?”

“Yes. I’ve suffered from urinary incontinence for quite a long time. But I couldn’t do them consistently.”

“Let’s take this opportunity to properly fix it once and for all. If you have the time, set aside 30 minutes in the morning to do them along with stretching. You can do them intermittently too, but you’ll forget.”

Kegel exercises are the only way to voluntarily strengthen the pelvic floor muscles by contracting and relaxing them, and any Korean suffering from urinary incontinence who has searched the internet would have heard of this exercise at least once.

When I think about it now, it makes sense that to strengthen the urethral sphincter, you just need to apply force there, but surprisingly it was only developed in the 1900s?

It was quite revolutionary for people in the Martial Arts World… I taught it to some court ladies for therapeutic purposes, and it became popular because they said it improved sexual sensation.

Several of them would pass by with flushed faces thanking me, which was quite embarrassing.

Anyway, Chairman Choe Gwije seemed to already know the method without needing explanation.

“I’ll try doing as you suggested.”

“Medicine, acupuncture, exercise. All together?”

“Yes. Sigh… At first I thought I’d give up on this, and later I wondered if it was worth treating when I only had a few more years to live, but my life has been longer than expected. I really need to fix this.”

When a patient had made up their mind like this, there was nothing to hesitate about.

“Good. I’ll help ensure you see definite improvement.”

I asked a few more questions during the consultation and then decided on the prescription.

Modified Bojungikgi-tang (Tonify the Middle and Augment the Qi Decoction).

Chairman Choi smiled happily when I told her it would boost her energy and help with marathons too.

I handed the prescription to An Juhui and went to the treatment room.

Ah, we had decided that An Juhui would now explain the herbal medicine through medication guidance sheets.

Of course, I still explain the basic principles when recommending the medication, but there might be patients who want to know what effects each herb has.

* * *

Choi Gwi-jae lay face down on the treatment room bed waiting for the doctor.

The diagram the doctor had shown her of the Bladder Meridian of Foot-Taiyang marked areas from the buttocks to the waist and back.

Would acupuncture there really cure her urinary incontinence?

Judging by how well he had treated her hip adductor muscles three days ago, he seemed very skilled, but her urinary incontinence had lasted well over 30 years.

‘I’ll consider it worth trying for about a month.’

It was fine when she didn’t think about it, but once she became conscious of it, it bothered her tremendously.

During this half marathon, the constant dripping drove her crazy!

Her throat was parched but she couldn’t not drink water, and even after using the restroom, the slight leaking was unavoidable.

“Ms. Choi Gwi-jae, I’m coming in.”

The doctor entered the bed area and carefully drew the curtain.

He disinfected with alcohol swabs, and the cold cotton touched not only her buttocks area but also near the back of her neck.

Was he going to put needles there too?

“I’ll do the pricking needle technique first. Like when I treated your adductor muscles last time, it goes in once and comes right out. It’ll sting.”

“Yes, I understand.”

The doctor pressed near her hip bone with his left hand.

Now here, slowly with the needle like last time…

Swish swish swish swish swish swish swish swish swish!

“?!”

Swish swish swish swish swish swish swish swish swish!

“Huh! Ugh!?”

Before Choi Gwi-jae could even scream, the needles passed by at an impossibly fast speed.

Unlike three days ago when he used needles to relax specific muscles, this felt like quickly pricking certain points with needles and moving on.

Was this right?

She was someone who had never held back from saying what she wanted for at least half her life, yet Choi Gwi-jae couldn’t utter a single word of protest to the Korean medicine doctor who was stabbing her all over with needles.

“Good work.”

Because before she could properly open her mouth, the dozens of pricks were finished in just a few seconds.

“Is, is it over?”

“The Bladder Meridian pricking needle technique is. Please lie on your back now. Was it bearable?”

“Everything happened so quickly…”

“If I do them one by one it’s too painful, so this treatment is always done this way. The ones going in your abdomen won’t hurt much.”

The doctor threw the thick-looking needle he was holding into a container.

Then he unwrapped a long needle… a long needle?

“You’re putting that in my abdomen?”

It was different from the needles she had received three days ago.

No, she had often received acupuncture before, but they had never exceeded about finger length.

But the long needle the doctor picked up this time was almost the span of her hand.

“I won’t insert it vertically into the abdomen, but lay it along the rectus abdominis muscle. I won’t touch the internal organs at all, so don’t worry.”

“Ah.”

She was convinced.

According to the explanation she heard earlier, it seemed he would strengthen the muscles by placing needles along the muscle fibers.

If he wasn’t going to pierce through her abdomen, it probably wouldn’t hurt that much.

But even so.

The intimidating presence of that length was unavoidable.

It looked like it was over 10cm… he was really going to insert that.

“Then I’ll go in.”

Contrary to Choi Gwi-jae’s worries, the doctor was completely calm.

“Relax your abdomen… here we go.”

The director tapped her belly lightly.

“…Ugh!”

Finally, a long needle began to pierce through Choi Gwi-jae’s lower abdomen.

She squeezed her eyes shut tight.

“Huk!”

It was a unique treatment, completely different from what she had vaguely imagined.

And she had to do this every other day?

This wasn’t just bothersome—it was a whole new challenge.

Would it be effective?

Really, it absolutely had to work!

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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