Doctor, Doctor, Give Me the News

As I was checking out at Mother Earth on Thursday, Dr. Yang, an acupuncturist, called me over to his table to do a free examination on me.  I put my protein shake down and he immediately asked me if I had any pain.  I couldn't think of any, so after some time I said, "I've had acid reflux in the past."  "Ahhh, acid reflux," he said.  "Very good!" "Very good?" I thought.  "What's so good about that?"  I guess he felt he now had something to sink his teeth into.  At that moment, he started pushing on various places on my ear.  "Does this hurt?" he asked.  "No," I said.  And then again and again.  "Does this hurt?" "No." Does this hurt?" "No." "Does this hurt?" 'No."  Finally, and seemingly frustrated, the doctor started pinching my ear rather hard.  "Does this hurt?" he asked.  "Ah yeah, but only because you're pinching it,"  I said.  "Very good," he said.  At this point he took out a little tab from a sheet of tabs and stuck it to my ear.  There was a slight burning sensation.  Then he asked me to stick out my tongue.  "Oh, I see line on your tongue," he said.  "That mean problem in the digestive system."  "Okay," I said.  "What should I do?"

He then handed me a flyer entitled Home Care for Chronic Digestive Problems.  The advice seemed good- i.e. take care when eating food, eat warm, easily digestible food, not too many drinks with ice, small and frequent meals, drink ginger tea and eat healthy soup etc.  There was even a yoga exercise, a meditation, and self-massage instructions.  "If you do these things, you will get better but first you must come in for a consultation and I will prescribe for you special herbs," he said.  "Uh-huh," I said.  "How much?"  "$120 for first visit and $80 for all visits thereafter."  "Even if I was sick, which I wasn't.  How can he be sure I would get better?"  I thought.  After all, everyone eventually falls ill and doesn't recover unless they die due to violence or an accident.  The funny thing is, that night I actually started feeling a little ill.  It hit me later while I was playing basketball.  

Today, I left my Algebra class early to go seek out help from the School Health Center.  I figured perhaps they could give me a strep throat test to see if I my throat and lung irritation was being caused by a virus or a bacteria, in which case I could get some antibiotics.  After a number of steps, the nurse found nothing and said I should just get some rest and take it easy on the exercise for awhile.  My blood pressure was a little high, so she gave me the obligatory talk about the silent killer.  You know, something health care practitioners regularly say in order to help them feel useful.  After that, I was back out onto campus, feeling a little weak and wondering if the acupuncturist had pulled any tricks with his burning tabs to make me feel sick and thus compelled to fork over $120 to him for services.