For years and years I've struggled with this problem. It doesn't necessarily hurt but it's uncomfortable as hell. To try to relieve the problem, I've tried stretching, hot packs, cold packs, water therapy, a chiropracter, a psychologist, posture pedic, Ben-Gay (once!), electro-stimulation, massage, and acupuncture...all with little results. Recently, I've become very self-conscious of the problem, convincing myself that people are judging me based on my neck movements. I started seeing a psychologist because I was convinced I was depressed. Even now, I am having difficultly writing about this condition. That's how much it affects me. A few months before leaving for China I started a combination of heavy physical therapy (massage and stretching) and acupuncture. For the first time in my life I was getting some sort of relief. The acupuncture worked on my deep muscles...relaxing some that had been tight for more than a decade...and the physical therapy worked on the superficial muscles. Gone were the strange neck movements and chronic tightness in my upper back. Sorry to leave my therapists for China, I was also excited to go to the birthplace of acupuncture and the other wacky medical treatments of Chinese Traditional Medicine. Maybe I could get rid of this once and for all.
I told the girls in my school about my problem and that I wanted to try acupuncture. They all thought I was crazy. Apparently, Chinese acupuncture is far more painful than the American imported Japanese acupuncture. In Japanese acupuncture, a therapist will gently insert a small needle into the skin, barely puncturing the surface. They will then leave you for 45 minutes to an hour to allow the needles to open up your energy flow (qi). However, in Chinese acupuncture, the "therapist" will quickly diagnose where he thinks your qi is blocked, heat up a giant needle, jam it into your body, move it around until your muscle jumps a little, and repeat for 10 minutes. Similar to China's long history of violence and suffering, maybe they believe that the only way to truly get better is to go through excruciating pain.
Needless to say, the acupuncture didn't really do it for me. After the initial shock and residual pain, there was some relief, but nothing compared to the Japanese variety. The "doctor" had another idea...something called "cupping" or "fire-pot." In this nifty Traditional Chinese Medicine technique, the doctor will ignite a large flame to heat up the inside of 12-15 jars, then place them, one by one, on your back. The idea, as I understand it, is to create a vacuum within the jars that will suck out your "bad gas"...the gas that causes you to become sick. This procedure is far less painful than the acupuncture, but still quite uncomfortable as the weight of the jars and the red hot heat begin to wear your body down after 15 minutes. Then the doctor will remove the jars one by one, leaving giant purple leopard spots or as I like to call them, hickies, all over your back. You see, the purple color indicates that you have "bad gas"...the darker the purple...the worse your gas. Red spots indicate a healthy person. I was purple all over.
The doctor recommended that I come back once a week as the acupuncture and the cupping work in tandem and the results increase the more you go. I've only been once so far because the pain of the acupuncture and walking around with giant purple spots on my back for 2 weeks seemed to outweigh the benefits of going back. I've had time to think it over though and decided to continue the treatment.
Who knows how long I've had purple spots? I don't think there will be a happier day in my life when I can look into the mirror and see red hickies up and down my back.
