The Physician of Traditional Medicine Returns from Murim - Chapter 316
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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 316
Has it been quite a while since Gong Nari started working at Our Oriental Medicine Clinic, but she’s never seen wart treatment before?
Come to think of it, except for three or four cases in the early days after opening, wart patients have been rare.
“I can do it. Did we get an inquiry call?”
I nodded.
We have all the treatment tools ready.
In our study group, Chu Miyoung often mentioned that she sees many wart patients.
Even when she was at Haneul Clinic, she had treated warts several times, so she confidently recommended treatment.
Since they healed well, wart patients would bring other wart patients, she said.
‘Director Chu said her treatment rate was 100%.’
Boasting that she had even treated warts of patients who had tried everything from laser treatment to cryotherapy, other branch directors including myself purchased moxibustion for wart treatment.
Of course, the utilization varies greatly from branch to branch.
In Seon Nayeon’s case, she was pleased that she saw great effects with moxibustion treatment on pediatric wart patients.
But at Our Oriental Medicine Clinic… there really aren’t many.
“No, it’s my younger sibling. It’s been quite a while but it won’t heal and has spread more.”
Ah, Gong Nari’s brother.
She lives independently with her younger brother, right? I saw his face once when helping with the move.
“I see. Bring him over. I’m good at treating warts.”
If it has spread, he must be suffering quite a bit.
It’s just that I’ve rarely seen wart patients since opening the clinic, but I used to burn many of them in the past, so I was confident.
“Does he need acupuncture? It would hurt if needled on the palm, right?”
“Well, for warts, moxibustion is the main treatment rather than acupuncture. There are several types too. For molluscum contagiosum, we sometimes cure it with just medicine, and for common warts, we need to combine moxibustion treatment. If the roots are deep, it’s advantageous to inject bee venom acupuncture too… Do you happen to have photos?”
The forms are quite diverse, making it difficult to explain the treatment method in one word.
For instance, molluscum contagiosum that commonly occurs in young children is called a wart but has a different causative virus and is relatively easy to treat. For those who fear needles, it can improve just by restoring immunity with medicine.
On the other hand, common warts, flat warts, etc., are mainly treated with moxibustion.
If there are only one or two, we eliminate the lesions without medicine, but depending on the situation, we need to mobilize all treatment methods.
“Oh… I don’t have any. I’ll tell him to come soon. Please examine him directly!”
Gong Nari scratched her head.
I’d prefer to check directly rather than photos too.
“Let’s start as soon as possible before it spreads more.”
“Yes!”
* * *
A few days later.
“Doctor! I’m here!”
“It’s been a while.”
Choi Gwi-jae stopped by the clinic with Heo Sunnam.
He said his knees and ankles were throbbing slightly, but fortunately it didn’t seem severe.
“I’ll be in your care again today.”
“What care when you’re coming for treatment? Let’s manage well so you can run in good condition.”
Still, since he’s running at an age when joints are weak, it’s better to treat early when there’s slight pain.
I quickly inserted needles while observing Choi Gwi-jae.
Hmm… his expression is subtle.
“Chairman.”
“Doctor, by any chance.”
Choi Gwi-jae’s and my words overlapped.
Probably the same topic I was about to bring up, right?
When I waited briefly, Choi Gwi-jae opened his mouth.
“That old man Lee Mansu, what on earth did you do to him? He became so energetic as if a nine-tailed fox devoured a person and sucked out their vitality… I’m not just surprised but bewildered.”
“You saw him too, Chairman… It was a change that even surprised me. I think severe fatigue due to liver function decline was acting as a brake.”
I was actually waiting for Choi Gwi-jae to come because I wanted to talk about Lee Mansu.
“No… no matter what, wow… I’m usually never at a loss for words. I did hope that bastard would get healthy since he was groveling so much, but I never thought he’d rampage like that.”
“Hehehe. It’s really amazing.”
Every time he appears on TV or internet articles, people are shocked.
It’s awkward to go around saying I treated him, isn’t it?
“He was already someone who didn’t act his age, and now he’ll live like that until 120.”
“Haha, he seems happiest at the scene. Chairman Choi, you…”
“I won’t reverse my retirement or anything. I’ve done my part, and even if the children are unreliable, I have to entrust the future to them.”
Choi Gwi-jae kept sighing in disbelief.
Well, even if they’re both business figures, they can have different values.
“It’s fortunate that you’re both happy in your own ways.”
“Right. Thanks to you and Sunnam, I’m having fun living these days too. That Lee Mansu bastard… sigh, he’s so happy it’s annoying. Tsk.”
Choi Gwi-jae shook his head.
Indeed, I’ve rarely seen someone who reverses retirement while shouting ‘I’m happy!’ from head to toe.
By the way, seeing there’s not a word about bear bile, he really kept it secret from Choi Gwi-jae too.
We finished treating his ankles and knees while giggling about Lee Mansu’s story.
“Doctor, Teacher Nari’s brother is here!”
After a brief lull, the patient I’d been waiting for arrived.
I had already brought the wart treatment tools to the examination room in advance for the explanation.
“Hello, Clinic Director….”
Gong Maru, Gong Nari’s brother, entered the examination room with drooping shoulders.
His face looked somewhat dejected, and his voice trailed off.
If Lee Mansu’s presence had been overly majestic, Gong Maru seemed unusually dispirited compared to the basic state of patients entering the examination room.
“I heard you’ve been suffering a lot because of warts.”
“Yes….”
“Let me look at the affected area first. Where are they spreading?”
Gong Maru spread both his palms wide to show me.
Round, rough warts about 2-5mm in size. The surface was covered with bumpy keratin layers, some grayish-white, others with a slight reddish tinge.
There were as many as 8 of them just on his hands.
No wonder he’s so stressed about this.
“The spreading pattern is typical of warts. Looking at the shape, these are common warts. Are they only on your hands?”
At my question, Gong Maru took off his socks and placed his right foot on his knee.
Three were clustered on his right big toe area, with one threatening to invade the area next to the toenail.
“Ah… plantar warts, of all things.”
Warts that appear on feet are specifically called plantar warts.
Even with the same pathology, warts on other body parts protrude upward, while those on the soles burrow inward due to body weight pressure.
That makes them much more difficult to completely remove.
“Where did they start spreading from?”
“The foot came first. It appeared where I originally had a callus, so at first I thought it was just some keratin hardening up. Since this was my first time with something like this, I didn’t even think to look into whether it was a corn or wart or what… I kept touching it because the texture felt interesting, and then my hands ended up like this.”
Gong Maru spoke gloomily.
He should have looked into it sooner – the guilt of having caused the situation himself was heavy.
“Ah… you must have been quite shocked. Corns and warts are hard to distinguish by appearance alone. In the early stages, they can be confused with calluses too.”
Now that it had spread, we knew it was a wart, but those appearing on feet really do look similar, requiring the surface to be scraped away for proper identification.
Warts show multiple pinpoint bleeding spots, while corns have a single root-like structure.
“I see.”
It seemed he had done some research on warts before coming, so I kept the explanation about the condition brief.
“Warts are a contagious disease caused by HPV, human papillomavirus infection. Unlike corns which develop from gravitational stress, the virus causes excessive proliferation of the epidermis. As you’ve experienced with the spread to your hands, they can transmit to other areas and even to family members, so you need to be careful about contact.”
Once transmission starts and spreads to the hands, if it spreads to the face from touching, the stress would be really severe.
“Yes. Fortunately, my sister seems to be okay so far. If her hands were messed up like mine, it would be really difficult for her work.”
“Oh my, it must be hard for you too, Maru.”
“Well, I’m just going to school… It doesn’t really hurt. The only inconvenience is that fingerprint recognition doesn’t work?”
Gong Maru chuckled and said he had to enter his password every time.
…That must be incredibly inconvenient though?
“They can be cured, right? Aside from looking ugly, they’re okay… but it’s a bit scary how they suddenly spread like this.”
Gong Maru spoke anxiously while flexing and extending his fingers.
“You haven’t tried any treatment yet, right?”
“No. I was thinking about going to the hospital, but my sister said she’d ask for me.”
“You came to the right place. Treatment works best when no other treatments, especially steroids, have been used. The number on your hands might be concerning, but each one is small in size. They should improve significantly within about a month. The foot ones might take 2-3 months, but I’ll treat you properly until they’re gone.”
“Ah…. That’s a relief.”
Though he said that, he didn’t seem very confident about the treatment.
He still seemed quite anxious.
“I’ll need to take medicine too, right.”
“Yes. With this many, oral medication is recommended. To prevent recurrence, you ultimately need to boost your immunity so your body can fight it off on its own.”
“So it’s more like immunity-boosting medicine rather than wart treatment…?”
“It’s both. For treatment purposes, I’ll use dampness-removing agents, especially large amounts of Euiiin. Have you heard that Job’s tears are good for warts?”
Gong Maru nodded slightly.
“Yes. I saw it while searching online. Some people drink Job’s tears tea and others apply it topically.”
“That’s a dampness-removing medicine that has anti-tumor effects while also dilating blood vessels. Think of it as detoxifying while activating skin cell metabolism.”
There’s even research showing it promotes immune cell activation.
But Job’s tears alone would be insufficient to build immunity against HPV, so I’d need to use tonic herbs as well.
“I see. So it eliminates tumors? Would it be good to apply it at home too?”
“That would be fine, but since I’ll be doing moxibustion mixed with Euiiin during treatment, you don’t necessarily need to if you’re busy.”
I planned to proceed with local area treatment in addition to immunity enhancement.
“Moxibustion?”
Gong Maru tilted his head.
Most Oriental medicine clinics these days use electronic moxibustion, or at most indirect moxibustion.
Young people probably haven’t seen direct moxibustion much, even if they visit clinics frequently.
I believe moxibustion is the key to wart treatment.
“Yes. It’s a method that delivers strong heat stimulation. This is called direct moxibustion – you roll mugwort into fingernail-sized pieces, place them on the warts, and light them directly.”
I rolled the prepared mugwort and mugwort leaves into round shapes and showed them to Gong Maru.
I could light these directly as they were, or burn them mixed with Job’s tears.
“Wow… Is it very hot?”
“I’ll remove it when you feel the heat sensation strongly. That method is most effective for warts.
Since it was a somewhat novel treatment method, Gong Maru showed interest.
Actually, in the Martial Arts World, they would sometimes burn it enough to induce actual burns, but it didn’t seem necessary to go that far.
At one time, I thought stronger was always better…
But watching what Seon Nayeon does, even just warming gently with electronic moxibustion really has effects, you know?
“If it becomes too hard to endure, I’ll remove it at an appropriate point and reapply a new one, so don’t worry too much. Let’s try approaching with direct moxibustion and medicine first like this.”
It’s been a while since I’ve burned moxibustion. This is surprisingly fun, you know?
When I was at the Medical Institute, smoke would frequently fill the Treatment Room completely… I miss that too.
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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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