The Physician of Traditional Medicine Returns from Murim - Chapter 341

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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 341

I had tried to handle it quietly, but now that someone had come looking, I would need to explain the situation to my staff later.

Since rumors had already spread, they would need to know how to respond if related patients showed up when I wasn’t there.

“Please sit over here. You said you were a patient being treated by Kwantaesik?”

“Yes!”

For now… I need to handle this person myself.

A grandmother who looked about 70 years old shouted angrily.

“What is your name? I’m Hanyewon, the director of Seongsoo Oriental Medicine Clinic.”

Since she wasn’t registered as our patient, I didn’t know her name or age.

I first tried to calmly introduce ourselves.

“I’m An Myeongja. Did that bastard arrest our teacher?”

Phew. I felt somewhat relieved.

At least there were no problems with her communication abilities.

“I didn’t arrest him myself, but it’s true I was involved in Kwantaesik’s arrest. It was necessary for An Myeongja and the other patients who were receiving treatment from that person.”

People who shout first without listening to others exist in South Korea too.

But it was nothing compared to the martial arts world.

I mean, how could someone claiming to be from the righteous martial arts faction yell at a physician for treating a demonic cult leader from the unorthodox faction?

Setting aside medical ethics, what was a weak physician supposed to do?

It was especially troublesome because the opposite side would sometimes draw their swords first.

After suffering such ordeals, a physician once advised me to buy and hang up a green robe.

He said just the color alone would remind people of a certain family, creating the threat of “what if this guy poisons the medicine?”

Of course, the members of the Sichuan Dang Family I later came to know would never do such things, but it was quite nice that their mere existence struck fear into the hearts of Central Plains patients.

“So where is he? Did he go to prison? When is he getting out?”

“That’s for the court to decide, so I don’t know yet. And even if he does get out, that person isn’t a medical professional. You shouldn’t receive acupuncture from someone like Kwantaesik in a place that isn’t a proper clinic.”

In modern times, public authority functions, so even if fairly strange people appear, there aren’t major problems.

Actually, the solution method itself is clear.

Try to persuade them with words as much as possible until your patience runs out or patients pile up outside beyond what you can handle, and if that doesn’t work, kick them out.

In the martial arts world, especially before learning martial arts, it was troublesome because there was no last resort.

“No!”

“Your condition could get worse, and I’ve actually seen two people like that.”

I explained based on common sense in a way that would be as easy as possible for An Myeongja to understand.

“No way! I was receiving treatment just fine!”

As expected, she didn’t understand right away.

An Myeongja stubbornly insisted on her point.

“You were receiving treatment well? Do you mean you were getting better?”

This wasn’t a very good approach when teaching patients who had been receiving illegal medical treatment.

Even if the practitioner didn’t have legal qualifications, actual therapeutic effects could still occur.

Especially with acupuncture treatment, there was an added fantasy that some mystical healing hermit might be hiding somewhere.

It was so bad that before proper educational systems were established, when professors were still students, Korean medicine students would even seek out famous quacks to learn from them.

Of course, when they actually went, there were no remarkable treatment methods, and since they provided free treatment, if you got better they were hailed as great physicians, and if you didn’t get better, well, it was free so people just accepted it, which inflated the rumors.

But was Kwantaesik anywhere near that level? He was someone who not only worsened diseases but created illnesses that didn’t exist.

I didn’t think she had actually gotten better at all.

“That’s right.”

“Where does it hurt?”

“My back!”

An Myeongja shouted loudly.

“I went to hospitals and oriental medicine clinics for ages and it didn’t get better! While going there, finally the nerves started tingling down to my legs and I was getting better!”

“…Tingling?”

“Blood circulation was happening in my feet that were like ice, wasn’t it?”

Ha, that bastard.

He had a talent for stabbing nerves to make them tingle.

This was an act of damaging perfectly healthy nerves.

He seemed to be very specialized in insisting that this was a therapeutic effect occurring, or the beginning of Sojucheon.

“So there was no tingling before you received acupuncture from Kwantaesik?”

“That’s right. It just hurt. The disc wouldn’t get better no matter what I did. Nerve blocks? I even had that and surgery but it was the same!”

She must have been very angry, as An Myeongja’s face turned bright red.

When I grabbed her hand that was pounding the desk, her hand was hot too.

‘Her feet are like ice?’

Meanwhile, I could see clues for pattern differentiation one by one.

“So your symptoms were mainly back pain and lower body coldness rather than tingling, numbness, or pulling sensations going down your legs, and there was no improvement at all even after surgery?”

“That’s what I’m saying! It’s the same – cold, heavy, and painful!”

The possibility that the surgery went wrong and nerve decompression wasn’t properly achieved.

The possibility that even after relieving nerve compression in one area, compression occurred again in the segments above and below.

There were various possibilities, but this grandmother didn’t seem like that.

From the initial symptoms, the pattern was different from typical disc problems.

“Is your upper body hot and your lower body cold?”

The leg tingling was actually consistent with disc symptoms, but that was caused by receiving improper acupuncture.

Originally, the symptoms were mainly pain-focused, and even after surgery to resolve the structural problem of disc herniation, there was no change.

The cause of the lower back pain she was currently experiencing was likely not the disc.

When disc herniation is observed on examination, it’s diagnosed as a disc problem, but even with herniation, many patients are asymptomatic, and besides discs, there are various causes of lower back pain.

“Yes? Yes.”

First, the most noticeable thing was upper heat and lower cold syndrome.

I pointed out several more things.

“Your body feels heavy overall, doesn’t it?”

“Well, I’m getting old, so naturally it does.”

“Your abdomen, knees, and legs feel cold with chills, but heat rises to your head,”

“….”

“Your chest feels stuffy from the solar plexus area, digestion isn’t very good, and it feels like your energy is blocked by stress….”

“How did you know?”

An Myeongja’s eyes widened.

Her red face and hands were visible, and she had given quite a few clues while talking all this time.

I had only gotten a few things right, but since she found such things amazing, she must have easily fallen for a swindler like Kwantaesik.

“Accumulations have built up in your body and are tormenting you.”

“Accumulations? The hospital only said it was a disc. Master Gwanungjang also….”

“You already had surgery for the disc, didn’t you? And Kwantaesik only made you feel tingling sensations but couldn’t resolve any of the heavy, cold, and painful symptoms. Even if you consider it being fooled once more, please listen to what I have to say.”

Indeed, An Myeongja’s attitude changed more with my firm tone than when I explained calmly.

I was confident I could treat this person.

And only by speaking this way would she follow through until real treatment effects appeared.

“…Alright. I’ll listen. What do you mean is accumulated?”

“Accumulations. Five types of accumulations. Cold accumulation, dampness accumulation, phlegm accumulation, heat accumulation, and qi accumulation.”

I wrote them in Chinese characters and explained each term one by one.

Cold accumulation makes the body cold and fatigued.

Dampness accumulation causes heavy, drooping, and languid feelings.

An Myeongja’s current lower back pain originated from cold and dampness accumulations.

“Ah!”

In addition, phlegm accumulation is mainly related to indigestion.

Heat accumulation is hot and stuffy, and since cold and heat accumulations exist together, the abdomen and legs are cold while the head is hot.

According to the principle of water ascending and fire descending, a healthy human body should have cool and clear energy in the head and warm energy in the abdomen and legs, but various bad accumulations had built up instead.

“So that’s why my legs felt like ice….”

And finally, qi accumulation is related to stress, and I explained that her current chest stuffiness and anger were also due to qi accumulation.

“Ah….”

“Usually one or two of these cause illness, but since you have all of them, it must have been much harder for you.”

When I held her hand saying she must have suffered, she avoided eye contact but didn’t seem displeased.

“If I receive acupuncture from you, can you drive them away?”

“I’ll do acupuncture treatment, but you’ll also need to take medicine.”

“Medicine?”

She leaned her upper body back sharply from where she had been leaning toward me.

It seemed financially burdensome.

An Myeongja blinked several times, then carefully opened her mouth.

“The surgery was expensive too, and I tried taking medicine from another oriental medicine clinic before the surgery. Couldn’t I try acupuncture first?”

“I’m recommending medicine because it’s absolutely necessary. If the cost of a custom prescription is burdensome, I’ll prescribe with preparations that can be covered by insurance. Take them consistently while receiving acupuncture.”

For preparations, with insurance applied, the patient’s copayment is less than 1,000 won per packet.

When I explained the cost would be less than 100,000 won per month, An Myeongja’s mouth fell open.

“Then it’s even cheaper than the acupuncture I was getting from Master Gwanungjang.”

That’s why such places just charge high prices to look impressive.

Since the rapport with Kwantaesik hadn’t been completely severed yet, I refrained from criticizing him.

‘Why on earth does she call him Master Gwanungjang? Did he go around saying his pen name was Unjang…?’

Letting it slide was somewhat trying, but it was something I had to endure for the patient’s treatment.

“That’s right. I’ll prescribe this Oejeoksan right away. It’s a prescription that drives away the five accumulations I mentioned earlier, and fortunately it’s been prepared as a ready-made formula. Even when patients have only three or four accumulations, I often prescribe this medicine for lower back pain and joint pain. For you, it’s a medicine that matches over 90%, so you’ll see good effects.”

An Myeongja stared at the medicine with a dazed expression, then looked at me again.

Since I was guaranteeing treatment at a lower cost than the places she had been going to, her shouting attitude had long since disappeared.

“Do I take it home today? And start acupuncture treatment right away too?”

“Yes. Since the preparation is ready, I’ll prescribe a week’s worth for you to take home after finishing the acupuncture treatment.”

She jumped up from her chair.

“The treatment room? I get acupuncture over there, right?”

And she tried to leave the examination room on her own to go to the treatment room.

I gently stopped An Myeongja.

“Please register first.”

“Oh.”

The order was really reversed, wasn’t it?

Based on her lower back pain symptoms, facial color, and lower body cold symptoms, I had done the pattern identification and prescription first.

But originally, there were plenty of things to do before that.

I needed to check the exact location of her pain and hear about what treatments she had tried so far.

And the first of those was definitely registration.

“Wow, the clinic director is truly amazing.”

When An Myeongja, who had entered angrily, came out like a gentle lamb, Jin Minjeong breathed a sigh of relief.

Perhaps she had been anxious inside, as her hand was still holding the cordless phone.

“Haha, we’ve decided to work hard on the treatment together.”

* * *

Fortunately, since An Myeongja had her ID with her, we were able to complete the registration safely.

I conducted a few more medical interviews and physical examinations before sending An Myeongja to the treatment room.

“Clinic Director!”

Perhaps she had been waiting for me throughout the physical therapy, as An Myeongja greeted me warmly.

“You’ve received acupuncture many times before, haven’t you?”

“Yes. I got it from Teacher Gwan, and there was another Oriental Medicine Clinic I used to go to before that.”

“I tend to treat more intensively than ordinary Korean Medicine Doctors. When I do herbal injections, it might feel a bit stiff, and with acupuncture, you might feel the tension releasing in some areas. But if you feel a sharp sensation, it means I’ve hit a nerve incorrectly, so don’t endure it and tell me right away.”

An Myeongja nodded solemnly.

I began inserting needles starting from the areas where qi and blood were severely blocked.

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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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