Reflections from a Visit to the Doctor for Numbness, Pain and Swelling in My Leg

Recently I went to the doctor because numbness, pain and swelling in my right leg had been worsening. The problem actually began long ago, but it was not as severe as now, so I had not paid attention. Recently, triggered by an injury, it became severe enough that I could no longer ignore it.

I first went to the Air Force General Hospital in Beijing, whose orthopedic-manipulation department is famous in the city. Over a year ago I had also gone there for lower-back and leg discomfort; the tests then found no cause, and the doctor judged, based on the symptoms, that it might be ankylosing spondylitis and early femoral-head necrosis.

I myself am a medical person who entered the system through the traditional apprenticeship model; my notarized, contractually registered master was an old orthopedic-traumatology physician.

Although I only treated orthopedics as a legal threshold for entering medicine and did not put serious effort into studying it, thanks to this apprenticeship I am at least not unfamiliar with orthopedic-traumatology conditions.

My intuition told me I had nothing to do with ankylosing spondylitis or femoral-head necrosis. The tests at the time ruled out tumor, and I was reassured; as a doctor who specializes in tumors, having seen so many, I care little about other diseases.

Returning to the Air Force General Hospital this year, I saw a different orthopedic-manipulation specialist.

I went on a Monday afternoon and waited until very late. This specialist works hard; an hour after the other doctors had clocked out, he had not yet finished his patients.

At six o'clock he finally reached patient number 99, with still more than ten people waiting in the corridor. That was his afternoon clinic load.

When I was finally called in, the doctor hurriedly looked me over for less than a minute and gave a confident diagnosis: a lumbar vertebral dislocation had made one buttock higher than the other, compressing the sciatic nerve, hence these symptoms.

He told me to go at once to the hospital gate to buy special height-increasing insoles (actually only expensive lift shoes) to raise the healthy leg by one centimeter. He gave me a phone number and told me to go to another private hospital for a confirming examination.

I asked one more question: roughly how long would treatment take to resolve this? The doctor said very impatiently that I would first have to get the tests to see how severe the lumbar dislocation was, and then he could judge; in any case it was quite serious and hard to treat.

I tried to describe my symptoms further, but the doctor was already looking at the next patient, wearing an unmistakably displeased look, so I had to leave his consulting room.

Once out, I called my master. After patiently listening to all my symptoms, he gave his judgment: first, he thought the term "lumbar dislocation" was very nonstandard; second, he thought I did not have a lumbar dislocation but a sacroiliac joint dislocation, and he told me to communicate more carefully with the doctor.

I was already too afraid to go back to that doctor, too afraid to see his obviously emotional face again.

The next day I went to another Grade-A tertiary hospital in Beijing and registered with another orthopedic specialist. I planned to have the tests the Air Force doctor had ordered done here, and also ask this specialist to diagnose me.

This specialist had fewer patients than the last; I was number three. He seemed to have plenty of time, but still spent only about a minute and a half. I shared my master's judgment with him; he listened impatiently, judged it a herniated lumbar disc, and told me to get an MRI first.

I did. The MRI showed my lumbar spine intact—no dislocation, no herniated disc.

I took the result back to the doctor. He glanced at the films and said, without thinking, that although the readout reported no herniated disc, I still had a herniated disc. He then wrote his prescription: laser therapy, plus various analgesics including oxycodone tablets.

Honestly, my pain had not reached the point where I needed analgesics.

I went to the cashier for the price. Excluding the exam fee, the treatment plus drugs came to over 1,800 yuan.

I found it absurd. Without even a clear diagnosis, treating it as a herniated lumbar disc, and even injecting anesthetic for laser therapy.

I did not pay. I left directly.

On the third day I went to an even more famous Grade-A tertiary orthopedic hospital in Beijing, and came out just as puzzled.

I thought it over and decided to stop going to hospitals. I planned to seek treatment from a descendant of the "Shuangqiao old lady" Luo Youming.

Before going, I searched for articles on the sacroiliac joint dislocation my master had mentioned (incidentally, because my master lives and works in my hometown and I am in Beijing, it is inconvenient to see him, so I have to seek care near where I live). I accidentally came across an article by an orthopedic-manipulation doctor at the Beijing Massage Hospital. It turned out this hospital was closer to my home than Shuangqiao, so I decided to go there first.

It is a Grade-B secondary hospital. The doctor who saw me was a young physician fresh out of school. Perhaps because of her youth and juniority, she patiently listened to all my description and also thought it might be a sacroiliac problem.

The young doctor ordered an X-ray of the pelvis (anteroposterior view). The result showed exactly what my master had suspected: a problem with the sacroiliac joint, with degenerative changes in the pelvis.

After the diagnosis, the manipulation doctor began sacroiliac joint reduction. The instant of reduction, my leg felt a comfort it had not known in a long time.

By the time I write this article, I have gone to this manipulation doctor for three reductions in a row. My lower-back and leg discomfort has improved dramatically; the areas once numb, painful and swollen are now almost completely free of numbness, pain and swelling.

This doctor is no famous name; in this Grade-B hospital his registration is only an ordinary, not an expert, number.

After the second reduction, my pain intensified. On the third visit I told him the truth; he grew a little nervous. I reassured him, telling him to treat boldly, that I trusted him.

He probed for about twenty minutes, then spent roughly thirty seconds on a key reduction. With a "crack," the discomfort in my leg vanished instantly and completely.

By this morning, all the symptoms—heel pain on walking, tearing pain in the sole, frequent ankle sprains, the involuntary crossing of my legs, and my right leg involuntarily pressing on my left when lying down—had basically disappeared.

Moreover, since the first reduction, my urinary-frequency problem has been resolved.

I had my first reduction on Monday, the second on Tuesday, the third yesterday (Thursday), and tonight (Friday) I will have a fourth to consolidate the effect.

Since Monday night, I no longer get up several times a night; I can sleep straight through to morning. Over four nights up to last night, I got up only once, and that was probably largely because I ate dinner too late.

The pelvic X-ray had inadvertently solved my years-long urinary frequency, which surprised me greatly.

After looking up some medical literature, I learned that pelvic tilt itself can cause bladder distension and discomfort and urinary frequency.

This is the second issue I want to discuss: my urinary frequency. I spent many years studying it, hoping to solve it. I sought help everywhere, hunted for secret formulas, took countless medicines, yet the frequency persisted. By chance, this time, it was cured.

I saw urology experts, including an academician; I saw no fewer than twenty doctors, yet not one gave the correct diagnosis.

Back in 1997, my brother took me to Shanghai to see an academician of urology. This venerable academician directly concluded I had urinary stones, and treatment according to his opinion had no effect.

Among the doctors I saw in the past, Western doctors mostly thought it was prostatitis or a sequela of urethral stones; one expert even suspected diabetes, though blood glucose testing ruled that out. TCM doctors mostly thought it was kidney deficiency. Some thought it was nervous urinary frequency.

I myself pinned the blame on my parents: because I wet the bed so much as a child and was beaten for it, I thought the beatings had caused me to become frequency-prone when nervous.

All these years, every doctor—including me—misdiagnosed my urinary frequency. Every method I tried failed. This time, by sheer luck, it was cured.

At the same time, the chest pain that had accompanied me for years vanished along with these pelvic and sacroiliac corrections. My coughing also dropped sharply.

I once had asthma, so my chest pain was naturally suspected by doctors to come from a respiratory disease; I thought so myself. As a result I had chest X-rays taken many times—of course, showing nothing.

I also saw chest-pain experts, was suspected of heart problems, and suspected of esophageal problems. No one ever thought that pelvic tilt could cause chest pain, or even coughing.

From the day I entered university in 1998, I have immersed myself in medical books for twenty-one years. To solve my own health problems I have poured in great effort, not only studying medicine but seeking help everywhere.

Besides top academician-level experts, I have seen all kinds of folk doctors recommended by friends; I have turned to Western medicine and to TCM. Though I myself am a medical person, when seeking care I have always been earnest and deeply respectful to doctors.

I do not think any of the doctors I sought was incompetent; though some were indeed cold in manner, most were of noble medical virtue.

Yet none of them solved my problems, and none ever even imagined that my problems could be caused by pelvic tilt.

I myself never imagined it either. To my shame, before this I had never even thought that pelvic tilt could cause so many symptoms, because I had never seriously studied orthopedics.

So the doctors on whom we pin such hopes have, outside their own specialty, just as many blind spots as laypeople. I am no exception; few doctors worldwide are otherwise.

How many diseases go uncured simply because the doctors we seek still have too much unknown territory? We chase the halo of famous doctors; how often are we not merely blinding ourselves?

This medical visit showed me my own ignorance and the shortcomings of my peers. Deeply ashamed, I also realized how much I still must learn before I can call myself a knowledgeable, well-read medical person.

From antiquity to the present, many people, falling ill and failing to find cure everywhere, have turned to gods and spirits. A large part of humanity's superstition in ghosts and gods comes from being unable to escape disease and death. If doctors could cure every patient, I believe the world would have far fewer people superstitious about spirits.

In my spare time these days I am reading "Global History," and I have reached the chapter on the European Renaissance. Its two authors are the British historian H. G. Wells and the American historian Carlton Hayes. The authors note that the Renaissance's greatest contribution was making people realize that "knowledge is power," liberating them from superstition in God and sparking a great explosion of human knowledge.

It cannot be denied that each of us still lacks far too much knowledge. I believe doctors should be the humblest people on earth, because although their work occasionally succeeds, more often it is accompanied by failure. Every treatment failure reminds us how far we still are from the goal of "rescue the dying and heal the wounded."

Do not stop on the road to seeking knowledge, for we still have too much unknown. Never be arrogant before others, for we, like everyone, have vast blind spots.

Finally, at the end of this article, I will briefly popularize what I have just learned about pelvic tilt.

If we regard the human body as a house, the pelvis is its foundation. When the pelvis tilts, the foundation is crooked.

Many causes can produce pelvic tilt. Common ones are trauma (I suspect my own pelvis tilted from an injury suffered very early in life) and pregnancy and childbirth in women. In addition, long-term poor sitting posture or poor walking posture can also cause sacroiliac joint dislocation or wear, further causing pelvic tilt.

After pelvic tilt, patients develop uneven shoulders (one shoulder high, one low) and uneven leg length (one leg long, one short); the buttocks are also asymmetrical, and some patients even develop uneven eyes (one eye large, one small).

Long-term pelvic tilt not only brings a series of health problems but also affects normal development; after pelvic correction, many patients have grown taller.

Pain, swelling and numbness in the lower back and legs are the most common symptoms of pelvic tilt. Heel pain on walking, tearing pain in the sole, frequent ankle sprains, and knee joints that are frequently injured for no clear reason or develop purpura, may all be caused by pelvic tilt.

Patients with pelvic tilt also unconsciously cross their legs, and bear weight unevenly on the two legs when standing or walking. Mild cases are usually hard to notice, but over the years they produce more serious symptoms.

Patients with pelvic misalignment are always told by photographers to straighten their head—that their neck is crooked. Pelvic misalignment is a major cause of cervical spondylosis; if the foundation is crooked, the whole building naturally tilts.

Pelvic misalignment also causes chest pain and coughing, because when the pelvis tilts the thoracic spine is compressed, so intermittent dull chest pain is unavoidable, especially when over-fatigued.

Patients with pelvic misalignment often feel a very full bladder and develop distressing urinary frequency, because pelvic tilt compresses the bladder. If you develop frequency and urgency without any obvious cause, consider checking your pelvis to see whether pelvic tilt is to blame.

Pelvic misalignment also causes constipation, easy fatigue, palpitations and shortness of breath, and symptoms resembling heart disease.

Finally, I wish every reader health and happiness, and hope every doctor will keep reading and learning, enriching his knowledge, and better relieving patients' suffering.