The Physician of Traditional Medicine Returns from Murim - Chapter 376

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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 376

Sebastien Lemoine was a person who believed he was born into this world to eat delicious food.

The first food he remembered was the charcuterie and cheese his mother had placed on the table during his childhood.

From the moment he discovered the joy of taste, he wandered the entire world in search of fine cuisine.

He had eaten many delicious foods and formed many unexpected connections.

But in the world of gastronomy, there was no such thing as having eaten enough.

As long as he lived and breathed, it was Sebastien’s belief that every meal should be beautifully adorned.

Sebastien had been working as a freelance culinary critic ever since quitting his job.

He had been making a living by contributing cooking and travel columns, but recently he had fallen into extreme fear.

“It tastes terrible!”

No matter how much he brushed his teeth, strange sweet and salty tastes lingered on his tongue.

There was no particular food he could compare it to.

At first, he thought he had caught a cold and lost his appetite.

But even after the cold was completely cured and he recovered his health, this unpleasant taste would not go away.

His entire tongue felt numb and painful, and gradually the taste of food became unclear.

While he hadn’t completely lost his sense of taste yet, it was enough to plunge Sebastien into terror.

The otorhinolaryngologist who had initially treated his cold said it would return in a few weeks.

But feeling a sense of crisis, Sebastien didn’t wait long and demanded a thorough examination.

“I’ve been just getting by with meals for over a month. I can’t live like this!”

“Then let’s run some tests.”

The first thing they performed was a detailed blood test.

Deficiencies in nutrients like vitamin B12, iron, and folic acid could be problematic.

Hypothyroidism and diabetes could also cause taste changes and tongue pain, so they needed to be checked.

But all the results were normal.

Just in case, he ordered and took all kinds of nutritional supplements.

Not only did they taste bad, but they had no effect at all.

“It would be good to have a consultation with dentistry and internal medicine. I’ll write you a referral.”

But there were no significant findings from other departments either.

“It’s not a dental cause.”

Even after examining his mouth, there were no wounds or inflammation on his tongue.

He didn’t even have cavities.

Even after getting a thorough scaling and waiting several days, his sense of taste still didn’t return.

“If stomach acid refluxes due to gastroesophageal reflux disease, it’s rare but could possibly affect the tongue.”

“Let’s do it right away. Please run every test possible.”

The endoscopy results were also clean.

Sebastien had been very careful about his dental and digestive health, as much as he valued fine dining.

He didn’t prefer foods that were merely stimulating.

He had always eaten slowly, savoring even a spoonful of soup, so it seemed unlikely he would have digestive problems.

“Can’t we also do a brain scan?”

“I saw on the internet that it could be an olfactory problem…”

He wandered from small hospitals to large hospitals, trying all kinds of tests and treatments.

“All underlying diseases are ruled out. We can only consider it burning mouth syndrome.”

The name the doctors gave was an ambiguous syndrome.

It seemed they called the unpleasant burning sensation that appeared without visible lesions by that name.

“Sebastien! How are you doing? Your columns have been sparse lately, so I contacted you. We’ve added new dishes to our buffet – how about coming to try them?”

Chairman Richi of Richi Hotel, a fellow gourmet.

Receiving his call, Sebastien felt overwhelming sadness welling up inside him.

While living day by day on bland food, wondering if eating too many strongly flavored foods had been the problem.

Hearing the voice of someone he had shared all kinds of delicacies with brought past memories flooding back.

As he conversed with the always talkative Chairman Richi.

Sebastien found himself unconsciously pouring out his sadness and anger.

He said he would look into good hospitals, but Sebastien’s heart was already devastated.

“Please don’t misunderstand and listen. Mr. Lemoine’s depression and anxiety levels are quite high.”

“Since I haven’t been able to taste for so long, isn’t it natural to be depressed?”

“Mr. Lemoine, you said your tongue pain was what on a scale of 1 to 10?”

“About 1.5.”

“The patient’s subjective pain is somewhat difficult to call burning. I suspect the taste abnormality that’s appearing might be a type of mental illness.”

The doctor said psychological factors seemed to be involved and recommended another interdisciplinary consultation.

Depression? Anxiety? While it didn’t resonate with him, he agreed that his fear was great.

So he accepted the suggestion.

The psychiatrist said the test results showed he was on the borderline of depression and recommended starting with the smallest dose.

But this wasn’t the answer either.

Taking the medication reduced his complex emotions, but only because he couldn’t think of anything and kept sleeping.

The strange taste seemed somewhat lessened, but his appetite decreased further.

Fundamentally, the sensation in his tongue didn’t return.

“I don’t think this is it either…”

Just as he was coming out after consulting with the psychiatrist.

Chairman Richi called again.

It was the moment when he had lost his will to live and was blankly staring at the Seine River.

“You remember my son suffering from tics, don’t you? The doctor who treated him back then is now in Rome. When I told him about your situation, he said he had some ideas!”

Even considering his suspiciously deep love for Eastern culture and Eastern medicine, there was trust in Chairman Richi’s recommendation.

At his urging, no less than his, Sebastien, who had been about to give up on everything, immediately rushed to the airport.

Could this doctor really provide treatment? He had doubts.

Well, what if he couldn’t treat it? He had already been disappointed dozens of times anyway.

Eventually, Sebastien realized that he couldn’t give up on anything that had even the slightest possibility.

He caught the fastest flight from Paris to Rome.

* * *

“So that’s how it happened. You must have been even more worried since the cause was unknown.”

“That’s right… When I first started treatment, the doctors spoke with confidence, saying this or that would be the cause, but nothing showed up in the tests, and the medication was useless.”

Chairman Richi had only mentioned going to the university hospital.

But to hear that he had even received psychiatric treatment in the meantime, he really seemed to have tried everything.

I had seen most of the possibilities mentioned by the doctors who had treated him before in the martial arts world.

Taste disorders have quite a few causes, and certainly most of the patients I saw in the martial arts world corresponded to oral diseases or nutritional deficiencies like vitamins.

In the past, oral diseases were difficult to cure, requiring long-term medication and emphasis on cleanliness, but in modern times, it’s the domain of dentistry.

In cases of nutritional deficiency patients, there were cases where they didn’t even know they had taste disorders, but when other diseases were treated, they would taste food and shed tears.

It’s just that Sebastien Lemoine is particularly a gourmet.

Among the five senses, isn’t taste rather dull?

But Sebastien was clearly a wealthy modern person who could receive all institutional medical care.

It would be safe to assume that all such causes had been ruled out.

“The first thing I thought of when I heard Mr. Lemoine’s story was facial nerve compression. The facial nerve is the 7th cranial nerve with branches extending like this – the facial nerve handles the front 2/3 of the tongue, and the glossopharyngeal nerve handles the back 1/3.”

I straightforwardly revealed the cause I was thinking of.

Since I wasn’t seeing patients at the oriental medicine clinic, it was inconvenient to display reference materials.

But searching the internet, I could quickly find diagrams showing the facial nerve and glossopharyngeal nerve branches.

“Oh? I haven’t tried treatment in that direction. The neurology department said there was nothing wrong with my brain.”

Hope appeared on Sebastien’s gloomy face.

He additionally mentioned that he had tried nerve injections in the back of his neck.

But he understood that I was talking about something different.

“Ah, come to think of it, the first doctor I saw did mention facial nerve palsy as a possible cause of taste disorders. But as you can see, I don’t have facial paralysis, and they said there was no tumor or anything like that.”

“Ah, as you mentioned, facial nerve palsy can also cause decreased taste. But even without such nerve damage, symptoms can occur due to compression.”

Even with back pain, rather than direct nerve damage.

It’s more common for abnormal sensations to occur from being pressed by other muscles, ligaments, blood vessels, etc.

Since my suspicion seemed to be correct, I asked the patient a question.

“Do you happen to have intermittent chest pain, bloodshot eyes, or frequent sleep interruptions?”

“Huh? That’s right. Until recently, before taking psychiatric medication, I couldn’t sleep well.”

Usually, people would suffer more from insomnia than vague taste disorders.

I could see why the doctor suspected depression.

And my suspicion became almost certainty.

“Please stick out your tongue.”

I first looked at the top of his tongue.

“Now flip your tongue to show the underside.”

I checked the bottom as well.

I first demonstrated by placing my tongue tip behind my front teeth and rolling it up so the underside came forward.

“Like this?”

Sebastien followed along well.

I took a photo of the underside of his tongue and showed it to Sebastien.

There are many aspects that can be explained in connection with the five organs and six bowels regarding the tongue coating and cracks on the top of the tongue.

But such content would probably not be culturally familiar.

However, the underside can be visually recognized as abnormal at a glance.

“Compared to my tongue, Mr. Lemoine’s sublingual veins are incredibly dark and thick, aren’t they?”

A healthy person’s tongue like mine shows sublingual veins just distinguishable enough, with pale black slightly showing through the pink tongue.

But Sebastien’s sublingual veins were very black, dark, and even bumpy.

“Oh, my God! This is crazy. What is this?!”

He was startled, having never thought to look at the underside of his tongue.

“They’re called sublingual veins, blood vessels that are originally there. It’s not something to be that surprised about.”

Of course, the condition wasn’t very good.

I searched for sublingual veins on the internet and showed him a comparison between an ideal tongue and seriously blackened sublingual veins just before a stroke.

I intended to reassure him that it wasn’t as bad as the latter.

But Sebastien was even more shocked and agitated.

“So there was something seriously wrong with my tongue? My God, my God! Oh, Lord! Doctor, what does this screen say? What exactly is the problem? Is dead blood trapped here?”

They say doctors who examine sublingual veins well can diagnose diseases just by looking at this area.

I don’t know that much.

But this is the most visible vein in the human body.

And it was true that it appears blackish in people whose blood vessel condition isn’t very good.

“Similar. In traditional Chinese medicine, we say there’s blood stasis, which in simple terms means poor blood circulation.”

“Ah, ahhh! My sense of taste is… because blood isn’t flowing to my tongue!”

“Broadly speaking, that’s correct, but as I mentioned initially, this would be a facial nerve abnormality. I believe a blood vessel with stagnant circulation somewhere is compressing the facial nerve responsible for taste.”

Only then did Sebastien understand his situation and gaped in amazement.

“Ahhhhh! So that’s exactly what it was!”

I explained in a bit more detail.

The sublingual vein we can see now isn’t anatomically in direct contact with the facial nerve.

However, the fact that the visible part appears like this means.

There could very well be blood flow stagnation in areas we can’t see.

Unless cholesterol levels are at hyperlipidemia levels or there’s an actual hematoma, it’s difficult to detect through testing.

Sebastien completely understood up to this point.

“There are also extraordinary acupoints right here on the sublingual vein. The left side is called Geum-jin (Golden Truth), and the right side is called Ok-aek (Jade Liquid). They’re important locations for removing blood stasis.”

Sebastien nodded, thinking that’s what they’re called in Traditional Chinese Medicine.

I couldn’t tell him that I could see qi and blood stagnated at those locations.

Instead, I emphasized that I had treated similar patients numerous times.

Whether through acupuncture, herbal injections, or bloodletting, releasing the Geum-jin Ok-aek points results in immediate improvement in half the cases.

“So, so you’re saying you’ll put needles under my tongue?”

“You’re almost correct, but herbal injections are more effective.”

Sebastien’s face, which had been listening with admiration just moments before, turned pale.

It would naturally be frightening.

Injecting directly into the tongue, especially near the veins.

I thought of various ways to reassure him that it wasn’t as scary as he imagined.

“Please do it right away! For the sake of my taste, I don’t care if you use needles or anything else!”

But my worry was unnecessary.

Sebastien, who truly loved fine cuisine, resolutely rolled up his tongue, saying he had already mentally prepared himself.

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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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