The Physician of Traditional Medicine Returns from Murim - Chapter 157

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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 157

“Lunch break until 2 o’clock, hic! I see! Sorry about that!”

The person who answered about Melon Soda Horizon’s performance apologized while hiccuping.

He was a head shorter than the two men who came with him, with a cute-looking appearance.

“Wow, Park Haru! …sir!”

Gong Nari recognized him and called out his name like he was a celebrity, then belatedly added an honorific.

“Huh? You know me? Ah, you must have been watching the show we were on?”

“Yes! I became a fan yesterday after watching that broadcast!”

“Thank you~.”

“It’s an honor.”

Park Haru smiled brightly and waved both hands, while Kang Jaekyung, who had entered the waiting room, also spoke politely.

Kim Taeyun didn’t open his mouth, but he wore a pleased smile.

“Sorry, we’re on lunch break right now. We usually eat in the break room, but we spread out too much today, didn’t we? You can wait in the 3rd floor waiting room or come back a little later.”

There were things to celebrate so I wanted to have a conversation, but this space that smelled of black bean noodles wasn’t suitable.

When I briefly suggested the downstairs waiting room, all three looked at their watches simultaneously.

“Hic, waiting 50 minutes is a bit much. We’ll go take care of some other business and come back! Hic!”

It didn’t particularly matter. We had just started eating, so if they had business to attend to, it would be wise to go and come back.

“Please do. Have a glass of water here.”

More than that, Park Haru’s hiccups were too severe.

Since they were here anyway, I pointed to the water purifier, meaning they should at least drink some water before leaving.

“It’s fine… Thank you.”

He was about to decline, but when Seol Yuhui, who was next to the water purifier, personally drew water and handed it to him, he drank it while feeling embarrassed.

“Hic, but since it’s been going on for so long, hic. I don’t think it’ll stop. Hi, hi, achoo!”

“It must be really severe…”

Receiving Gong Nari’s worried gaze, Park Haru drank the water.

As commonly done for hiccups, he tried holding his nose and drinking water, but indeed it didn’t stop even until the moment he went outside.

“We’ll come back a little later.”

With Kang Jaekyung’s greeting, the three people went outside.

* * *

And they only returned when it was almost evening.

“There’s a studio nearby where some older brothers we know work, so we said we’d drop by briefly, but we got a bit late after playing around.”

“There’s still plenty of treatment time left, don’t worry about it.”

It was almost time for office workers who finished work at 6 o’clock to come rushing in, but it was still okay for now.

I shrugged my shoulders, saying I didn’t mind.

Did they have a really fun time playing with the older brothers they knew?

Kim Taeyun was even carrying a guitar on his shoulder that wasn’t there before.

“Ah, this is something our guitar member has been saying he wanted to borrow for a while… Since Taeyun isn’t getting treatment today, he’ll keep it with him in the waiting room.”

Kang Jaekyung, who noticed my gaze, explained.

“Make yourselves comfortable. You don’t need to worry about it. If there’s a place to store it, you can leave it at the front desk too.”

“Hic!”

Kim Taeyun was fine, and Kang Jaekyung said there wasn’t a big problem with his wrist either, but he wanted to receive treatment once for maintenance.

Since it had been quite a while since his last visit.

“The waiting room got bigger, that’s nice. You expanded too?”

“Yes. We were preparing to use up to this floor. You all appeared on TV too and became incredibly famous.”

“Come on, we were only on briefly yesterday. Since we’re regular patients, you must have watched closely, Teacher.”

“Hic!”

Kang Jaekyung spoke modestly, but.

“It’s like that today, but I think you’ll have tons of fans soon.”

Positive energy was rippling around all three of them.

Should I say it felt like an egg just before hatching? Maybe the calm before a volcano erupts would be more fitting.

I had a very strong premonition that they would blow up soon.

“Hic!”

“Clinic Director, so about that, please do something about our youngest here.”

Park Haru was listening to our conversation with great interest, but he couldn’t stop the hiccups from continuing.

“Ah, yes. Haru, you came because of the hiccups, right? Are your hands okay?”

“Yes, hic. My hands are fine, but hic. This won’t stop.”

Since they were band members, I thought there would be problems with wrists, fingers, etc., but it was a completely unexpected issue.

“Ever since my wrist hurt, Taeyun has been thoroughly managing the members’ hand care.”

To the point where Kang Jaekyung would shudder about it.

Kim Taeyun smiled pleasantly once again.

“Hehe, Jaegyeong finds it burdensome, but hic, I like it when Taeyun feeds me.”

Do they even feed you? That must be an exaggeration, right?

“Um, yes. How long have you had the hiccups?”

“It’s been about two or three weeks since it got this severe, *hic*.”

“Did you have them a little before too?”

“*Hic*, not continuously like this. About once or twice a week? I’d get continuous hiccups occasionally, but they usually stopped when I drank water. Just single hiccups happened several times a day though.”

Troublesome hiccups occurring 1-2 times per week, and single diaphragm spasms that immediately subsided happening several times a day.

The frequency couldn’t be called low even originally.

“Originally they weren’t loud enough to make sounds like this. We didn’t really notice them. But once the broadcast filming started, they suddenly got much worse.”

Kang Jaekyung narrowed his eyes and glared at Park Haru as he elaborated.

“Hehe, originally it was just part of daily life… *Hic*!”

“I looked it up online and found that something called Jeonghyang-siche-tang would be good. Could I get a prescription for it?”

This time Kim Taeyun spoke up.

‘He knows about Jeonghyang-siche-tang?’

He had researched and brought up Yonggaksan and Hyangseong-pajeok-hwan before, but wasn’t Jeonghyang-siche-tang beyond common knowledge?

Unless he had read the Donguibogam or Department of Traditional Korean Medicine textbooks.

There were occasionally patients who came after seeing advertisement posts that Oriental Medicine Clinics put up online, but Kim Taeyun was more than ordinary.

“Siche is persimmon stems, right? *Hic*, it’s so fascinating. I thought about buying persimmons and eating the stems, but my older brothers stopped me saying there was no need to eat pesticide-sprayed ones.”

Siche definitely has the effect of gangyeok , meaning it brings down qi that surges upward.

But normally when you think you should eat siche, wouldn’t you look for siche tea? To think of chewing raw persimmon stems.

This friend was also quite extraordinary.

“You came to the right place. Hiccup causes are varied, and while Jeonghyang-siche-tang is the textbook first prescription, it’s not suitable for every situation. Do you have digestive problems?”

“Uh-huh.”

Park Haru slightly avoided my eyes.

“It doesn’t work well.”

“The digestive medicine I bought here last time was also for this guy.”

“It’s not that bad though! *Hic*, of course I can’t eat too much, but when I take digestive medicine it gets better right away.”

So it’s fine when he eats normally.

“Do you often overeat? Do you also like carbonated drinks?”

“How did you know? This guy can’t eat without cola.”

Kang Jaekyung and Kim Taeyun nodded.

Park Haru puffed his cheeks and denied it.

“I can’t eat every meal without it. *Hic*! I only need carbonated drinks with greasy foods like pizza and chicken.”

People who say things like that have a characteristic.

“You eat a lot of those greasy foods, don’t you?”

“…”

They eat pizza, chicken, and jjajangmyeon very frequently.

“So how much cola and cider do you drink per week?”

“Uh, 9 cans? 10 cans?”

“…”

Kang Jaekyung glared at Park Haru as if he found it utterly absurd.

He had thought the youngest’s eating habits weren’t good, but he didn’t know it was to this extent.

“Just making his fingers unusable wouldn’t have been enough.”

Kim Taeyun said very seriously.

“Taeyun even bought you paraffin, so let’s take better care of your health.”

“Hiing, drinking some cola isn’t that big a problem…!”

“Now there is one, isn’t there?”

“This time we got by quietly since you only performed, but if the rounds go up there will be practice scenes too, and if you keep hiccupping on the broadcast you’ll get a weird nickname.”

Under the glares of his two older brothers, Park Haru sniffled with tears.

“Now, now, calm down.”

I stopped the two from scolding him.

He didn’t seem like the type to get stressed from nagging, but there was nothing good about putting excessive pressure on him.

“Hiccups are repeated spasms of the diaphragm, and each time the vocal cord entrance closes, making that loud sound. Previously when you two didn’t notice, there seemed to be diaphragm stimulation at an intensity that didn’t make sound.”

Returning to medical talk, I briefly explained about hiccups.

“Yes, *hic*. I often had that feeling of something going ‘hic’ upward, *hic*. But lately it’s gotten severe and I can’t control it at all. I don’t know why this is happening.”

I nodded.

Diaphragm spasms are a phenomenon, and the problem is why this kind of stimulation occurs.

“The exact cause hasn’t been clearly identified, but you can think of it as the diaphragm becoming hypersensitive for various reasons. In Haru’s case, carbonation and overeating, plus alcohol if you drink, would cause stomach expansion and stimulation.”

“Ah.”

“Liver congestion, diaphragm inflammation itself, visceral obesity, etc. can also cause pressure… It’s the most common by frequency, and since there are dietary problems, it’s sufficient to assume the stomach is the culprit.”

“…Yes. I think so too. *Hic*.”

“Anyway, when the diaphragm becomes tense from being pressed by other organs like that, it feels stress just from breathing and sends signals to the brain.

Of course, there are still many unclear aspects to the neural transmission system.

“And it’s also said to be related to decreased blood carbon dioxide levels. You’ve already tried drinking water quickly and holding your breath, right?”

“Yes. I tried blocking my nose and drinking water, breathing with my head in a bag, pulling my tongue, swallowing ice – I tried everything but it didn’t work!”

“Those methods stop hiccups by raising blood carbon dioxide levels, but they rarely work for chronic cases.”

It’s a harmless folk remedy, and it works quite well when someone who’s normally fine gets hiccups occasionally.

Since that didn’t work, they must have come to the hospital.

“Hic.”

Park Haru made a pitiful face, saying he’d already tried everything.

“What about Jeonghyangsichetan?”

Kim Taeyun asked somewhat worriedly.

“We passed the first round, so we have another filming session soon. It would be great if he recovers before then… I’m not trying to rush you.”

“I understand. But for Jeonghyangsichetan, it would be better to take it over a certain period. It takes time for fundamental treatment to restore the stomach that has become deficient and cold from overeating and carbonated drinks, and to bring down the refluxing energy.”

“Yes. This kid has been drinking cola ten times a week, so that makes sense.”

“So to stop the hiccups right away.”

“Is that possible?”

“Probably.”

I stopped talking and got up from my chair, moving behind Park Haru.

Not always, but it seemed possible to stop Park Haru’s hiccups right now.

“Hic.”

“Let me press on your shoulder.”

“Ah, yes.”

Kim Chunsik had introduced me to a case very similar to this situation.

It was an amazing paper about an elderly patient with bacterial pleuritis who had hiccups for over ten days that wouldn’t stop even after using the antiemetic Metaclopramide followed by the antipsychotic Chlorpromazine,

but was instantly cured with infraspinatus acupuncture.

“Uwaaaah!”

“As expected, the infraspinatus is stiff.”

Should I call it the shoulder? The back?

When I stimulated the infraspinatus trigger point right below Park Haru’s scapular spine, he screamed as expected.

Seeing that the treatment method from the paper wasn’t very mainstream, it didn’t seem like acupuncture in the same area would be effective for all patients.

But at least for Park Haru, it was obvious that pathogenic energy was severely blocked in that area.

“If I stimulate these areas where energy is blocked to relax the muscle tension around the diaphragm, the diaphragm hypersensitivity should ease to some extent.”

“Hic, you’re treating it with acupuncture?”

Park Haru was startled.

“Yes. You were already under pressure, and it got worse because muscle tension from this filming was added on top. If you receive acupuncture treatment, you’ll see results quickly.”

“That would be wonderful!”

I had been wanting to try treating hiccups after reading that paper anyway, and the perfect patient just happened to come.

“If you recover well, please spread the word that our Oriental Medicine Clinic is good at treating chronic hiccups too.”

I said half-jokingly while loosening Park Haru’s shoulder a bit more with my hands.

If this goes well, I should write a case paper like Yu Gyeonghun did.

“Oh, sounds good. I’ll make it into a song and sing it for you.”

Kim Taeyun responded to my words with an amusing joke.

Oh my, since he’s holding a guitar while saying it, it sounds real.

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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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