Joining 2 cultures

[Patrick & Li]

My wife has now been here for 4 1/2 months. We get along famously. She tells me all of the time how happy she feels now, and i ALWAYS concur.

 

BUT, We do totally disagree on medicines. Whenever our son feels sick, She always mixes up these strange concoctions for him. I learned very early on just to sit back and let her do her thing. But twice I have felt the need to step in and take control of the situation. The 1st time, Our son had the squirts for 2 days running, and she was making up all these concoctions, and like the good son that he is, he was letting her do her thing, but was getting no relief. So i run to the store and get a bottle of Immodium AD. I give him a dose, and his stomach was fine after this, My wife didn't want to admit that the Immodium was what worked for him, and she claimed that all of the medicines she had given him had finally started working. So i just let her think that, But the son knew better, and i gained his trust after that.

Yesterday I had to get him from school early. He was complaining of an upset stomach. Once again, I let my wife do her thing. Once again, no relief for son. This morning he stayed out of school and He actually came to me and asked me for some help in his very limited English. I gave him a dose of the Tried and True "Pepto Bismal". He says he now feels better, and my wife is mad as Hell! LMAO!

 

I guess that one day our cultures will totally meld together, and I will be more confident in "Some" of her chinese medicines. I just hope that one day she will admit that American medicines are also pretty darn good.

 

Patrick B)

[Rick-Guohua]

LOL'S

I know how that work's,,,, I'll tell you. The first time I went ti China, It was so cold in December,,,,, ,, I'm from Arizona and even December is nice here. But my old Army injuries started to sweel up and ach and hurt and I was in pain.... Off we go to this back street doctor I think it was a doctor.... I know she was really old B) .

She mixed up this REALLY SMELLY STUFF, I mean this stuff was bad

And she applied to my knees and my ribs and slapped on a big bandage.

I was told no bath and keep this on for 3 days

I know this forsure!!! I had to stick to High Heaven..... If I'd died right then and there,,,, The Devil would have turned up his nose at me..... That's a good thing I hope....

But to make this short,,,, It Worked!!!! The pain and swelling went away and I could walk and breath again....

 

My wife studyed Herbial Medicine in Harbin school of medicine for 4 years and I hopeing to still get to go the doctor here if I need to, I mean, The smell.... But I want to make her happy and I guess it can't kill me, Every one else one time or another as tried.

Rick

[Jeikun]

Sometimes Chinese medicine has good results - after all, so many of our drugs are derived from herbs and such. And yeah sometimes "humoring" them is ok... but sometimes it can be dangerous.

 

I have gone from in the beginning thinking "It's a cultural difference, and I should be accepting", to this state of shock and disbelief and more than a little fear. It is one issue I will likely never compromise on again. So many Chinese doctors are about 50% doctor, 50% witchdoctor. I think the percentage can vary, but going to a modern hospital doesn't guarantee that you will get one who is less witchdoctor than "real" doctor. I am sure many many Chinese die every year because of this. Not my Jun. To hell with "cultural respect". A bellyache, yeah fine take the glass of black smelly stuff and see if it works. Something serious, and I would practically be more afraid of her going TO the hospital.

[maiyademama]

This topic is probably better suited for the culture forum, but hey, lets go for it.

 

I have a pretty high opinion of Chinese medicine, however, I have more faith in TCM practitioners here in the US than I do in the ones back on the Mainland. I have somewhat arthritic knees that really hurt during the winters in Xi'an. One of my teachers took me to see a TCM doctor and I received the same *remedy* that Rick described in his post. The black smelly stuff and a bandage is called "dog skin" in Chinese. Anyway, before they applied the dog skin, i had to go through a battery of other treatments. First they rubbed some Zhenggushui on my knee and then they applied steam...Apparently I have *wet* knees and the steam is supposed to help...that is all well and good, BUT...You will never believe the apparatis used to apply the steam to my leg!!! I was so scared! They actually used a steam IRON and held it about 3 mm away from my knee while they depressed the button to eject the steam This lasted for about 20 minutes...just waving the hot iron around my knees and and holding a bowl under the iron the whole time to catch the run off water. I was sure they were going to burn me, but miraculously I came away unscathed. Unlike Rick, I gained absolutely zero relief from the dog skin. Needless to say, i never went back to THAT doctor!

 

AS far as common cold remedies and tummy aches are concerned, i stand firmly behind Pipa Gao (a cough syrup) and the infamous "black sugar" remedy for upset tummies.

 

The other issue I have with medicine in China is the gross over-use and mis-use of antibiotics! At the first sign of a cold, everyone starts popping penicillin and then they only take a few doses and toss the package! It is no wonder there are so many mutations and varying strains of bacteria and viruses in China. My husband gets cold sores and his first line of defense is always to try antibiotics. It doesn't matter how many times I explain that cold sores are viral and therefore immune to antibiotics, he will still take a day or two's worth before trying something else.

[turtle]

The other issue I have with medicine in China is the gross over-use and mis-use of antibiotics! At the first sign of a cold, everyone starts popping penicillin and then they only take a few doses and toss the package! It is no wonder there are so many mutations and varying strains of bacteria and viruses in China. My husband gets cold sores and his first line of defense is always to try antibiotics. It doesn't matter how many times I explain that cold sores are viral and therefore immune to antibiotics, he will still take a day or two's worth before trying something else. 

Not just popping pills, but my fiancee gets IV antibiotics at the hospital at the drop of a hat. She's always telling me about going for "injections" when she gets a sore throat, etc.

[maiyademama]

The other issue I have with medicine in China is the gross over-use and mis-use of antibiotics! At the first sign of a cold, everyone starts popping penicillin and then they only take a few doses and toss the package! It is no wonder there are so many mutations and varying strains of bacteria and viruses in China. My husband gets cold sores and his first line of defense is always to try antibiotics. It doesn't matter how many times I explain that cold sores are viral and therefore immune to antibiotics, he will still take a day or two's worth before trying something else.  

Not just popping pills, but my fiancee gets IV antibiotics at the hospital at the drop of a hat. She's always telling me about going for "injections" when she gets a sore throat, etc.

Yeah! I actually had to undergo the torture of IV drip for an intestinal infection! I spent the whole night in the hospital connected to the thing (4 bottles of Anitbiotics and 3 bottles of Potassium solution for dehydration). ugh! You are stuck in a room full of Chairs and IV stands. People smoking and spitting IN the Hospital!

[frank1538]

I caught a cold while I was in China, and Jingwen made all these concoctions that did little other than make HER feel better about taking care of her husband. I wanted to go to the drug store and look for the good old American cold medicines. No way. We had to go to the hospital and have the doctor take a look. He wrote a prescription for an anit-cold medicine. Of course, Jingwen had to go get it since I couldn't read a word.

 

Well, we got home, and she made me take the capsules. I'm looking at the box, written in Chinese, not understanding a word, but then I turn the box and see "Bufferin - Cold and Flu". I felt better in a day or so, and Jingwen was so happy that the "Chinese" medicine worked. I didn't have the heart to tell her otherwise.

 

I've had many Chinese remedies, including snake bile, creosote pills, and an assortment of of teas and herbs. Some seem to work. Others encourage you to feel better more quickly just so you don't have to take the stuff any longer.

[warpedbored]

I had a guy come into our store not too long ago who is some kind of doctor that does research on experimental drugs. He was telling me about some medicine that will shorten a cold to about half the normal time as well as make it less contagious. He said the FDA wouldn't approve it because of pressure from the pharmecetical companies. They would lose too much money in over the counter cold medication.

[sylinchinastill]

I think that one difference at least between me and my fiance is how often we go to the doctor. When I get sick-if I know it's minor- I just won't go- while he will go at the slightest sign of anything. Also- he gets sick a lot. So when he gets sick- I am learning just to cook him congee with eggs and slimy pickled vegetables and take care of him in his way. When I get sick- a cold or sick to my stomach- I need either chicken soup or saltines and Sprite. My dad told me to give that to my husband one day when he was sick- but I wouldn't- because it is hard enough to be sick- it makes it easier if you can get well with things you are familiar with- but something major- and we are going to use Western Medicine.

[turtle]

When my fiancee got sick to her stomach a couple years ago, I gave her some Sprite. For some reason my mom and grandma always said this will "settle the stomach". Anyway, my fiancee got violently sick after taking the Sprite, and, to this day, brings it up when I try giving her medical advice

[MarkandLeigh]

I won't try giving my Leigh any advice. She's a medical doctor already and quite comfortable in what she does!

[awch]

Something serious, and I would practically be more afraid of her going TO the hospital.

I have to agree on this one. I don't trust Chinese medicine at all. And it's true, they use antibiotics and IV's for everything. Doctor's only have to have a 5 year university degree. I have that much education!

 

I have really horrible migraines and the only way I've been able to deal with them in China is to get some pain killers from the black market. I've been to the hospital and all they did was give me a shot of antibiotics!

 

On the other hand, I do have Chinese massage 2 times a week and that seems to help a little.

 

Xiao ming always tells me that Chinese medicine just takes longer to work, that you have to take it for a long time to get results. Well, when I have a migraine I can't wait a long time!

 

Also, like sylstillinchina said, Xiao Ming also goes to get an IV for any little sickness while I tend to stick it out until I know if it's serious.

 

This is one of the main reasons we are going back to the US, I don't want to have kids here. I can't imagine it. If we lived in a bigger city, it might be ok, but here we don't have any foreign doctors, and none that even speak English.

[mari]

I do respect the fact that they believe so much in "chinese traditional medicine" and I agree that some of them may help only as a supplement to our medicines. I remember last winter I got the most terrible cold while in Beijing, and my dear boiled some strange, thick and smelly stuff in a pot and then passed it it thru all the house, I guess trying to disinfect the air. Well, all I can say is that he never catched the cold And of course I got my dosis of penicillin also.

[lele]

Yikes!

 

This is really serious. I just wrote a paper for a political economy class (one of the few non-hard core technical classes I have taken at the university level) about antibiotic resistance and the implications that it has on the larger society. This is really tough stuff to deal with.

 

My darling caught a bacterially resistant infection a few months back. These types of infections occur when people take some antibiotic but do not finish the treatment, when they eat meat or drink milk from animals that have antibiotics in their food to allow them to grow larger and fatter, or from people who use antibiotics all of the time.

 

Well, she went to the hospital and the anitbiotic IV did not work. She was really scared and I talked with her for a long time about this. After being able to figure out what the problem was, I called up my cousin (who is a doctor in the US) and asked him. His plan of treatment was exactly what she had already undergone. It seems in the US, that is the 2nd line of defense. Well, at this point, I urged her to leave her family town (where she was being treated) to head back to her HuKou city (which is large) and to check in at the main hospital with the knowledge of a resistant infection. Thankfully, they had a 3rd line of defense antibiotic and after about 5 more days of treatments each day, followed by another 10 days of antibiotics in pill form (and YES i kept insisting that she eat them as she was instructed to do) she got better. *whew*

 

However, the issue is much more complicated than this.

 

Right now in the US, there are more than 4000 patents each year (for at least the past two years) which are applied for by the pharm industry for use of specific drugs which are purified from plants or other substances used in traditional medicines throughout the world. And in China, it seems that they have a larger access to these than most of the ancient world due to the extreme diversity in geography and local climate. There is true potential here, and often times, if an educated and thoughtful traditional medical practitioner can help you, you can have better results. This was definitely the case when my father injured his ankle again (the last time involved major surgery when he was 16 years old) while in China. Instead of the swelling that had been in place for the first 3 hours and the extreme pain, he was up and about after about 1 full day. When coming back to the states to get it checked out, it seems that the tendon was severely pinched and somehow it was able to get loose and re-allign itself. Hmmm, I wonder if the traditional treatment had anything to do with this.

 

Moral is, at least for me, that each side can still learn much from the other, and that this is the type of experience for which I hope that we can improve everyone concerned by learning and sharing and growing. :-)

 

A nice story, thank you for sharing.

[lele]

I had a guy come into our store not too long ago who is some kind of doctor that does research on experimental drugs.  He was telling me about some medicine that will shorten a cold to about half the normal time as well as make it less contagious.  He said the FDA wouldn't approve it because of pressure from the pharmecetical companies.  They would lose too much money in over the counter cold medication.

Hmmm...

 

I hate to say this, but I think that the guy is scamming you.

 

The common cold is just a virus and hence there is very little that can be done, save for boosting one's immune system. However, this will not work for all viruses and hence there is no easy solution.

 

If this really did work, it would be being studied and reviewed in TONS of medical journals as the next potential cure to HIV and AIDS.

 

Although, if it really did work...that would be quite a thing! :-)

 

How did it go?