The clinic

As some of you know, my back has been on the DL the past week. Throw in a cough that has been lingering for 3 weeks and I had to do something. So, Tuesday after school, I finally threw caution into the wind and went to a clinic on the way home. My co-teacher was happy to let me go on my own, but snuck in a scary "Good luck" as I left her sight.

Armed with my Korean national health card, I headed for the nearest local clinic. I walked in, and quite dramatically, made convincing gestures indicating some bad back spasms and a nasty cough – both were heavily embellished. The receptionists politely motioned over to the wall collage of dental surgeries, stood up and walked me across the hall to the clinic I was looking for.

Once in, I was hit with the warm breath of 90% humidity and no Air conditioning. In Korea, you are either greeted with businesses having huge AC units struggling to cool a store that has all its doors and windows open (most cases - clearly to save people from “fan-death") or a total lack of AC at all. I was quickly received and ushered into the doctor’s office.

The big, well-furnished office accommodated man in scrubs, seemingly in his early 40’s who spoke enough English to get an idea of what I wanted. He quickly wrote down the words “Back” and “Cough” (the latter would never be mentioned again or acted on). I asked for a massage for my back (because I heard you could get that here) and he quickly said “No massage”.

Ok then.

He reached over onto his desk and grabbed two small spears in plastic sheaths while calling for his assistant to bring some alcohol. He then casually pushed them into the meat of my left palm, and asked me if the pain in my upper right back area was “better”. I told him not really. He proceeded to push the pins further into my palm, all the time rotating them like a watch-smith winding a wristwatch and regularly looking up to see my reaction. Nothing but a gross feeling that the needles were touching bone.

I was then whisked away onto one of 20 marble examination tables. The treatment room was very clean, modern and professional looking. The assistant placed, what looked like electrical-stimulation (e-stim) pads on the stiff part of my back. The pads not only gave out a pretty solid shock, but also kneaded my back with invisible fingers, while the marble table melted me down with a ferocious heat. After 20 minutes of kneading and shocking, the assistant flipped me over, and the doctor returned to insert 4 new skewers into my leg and back. The ones in my hand were removed and an electric current was hooked up to the skewers in my back. All this time, I have an idea, but really don’t know what is going on.

The third stage had me get up, sit on the edge of the table, and remove the spears. Behind me, I could hear them adding glass suction devices onto my tight back, and quickly pump the air out of them to create a vacuum. Between “glass sucker” 2 and 3, I thought I felt some light cutting or slicing of an area of my back... and then a “sucker”was quickly placed right over that area. Who could be sure? Before I knew it, there were 7 suckers on my back and I was left for 20 more minutes.

It wasn’t until they started removing the suction vessels and whiping me down with alcohol that I could see that they had sliced and bled me! Nothing scaring, but a little unnerving none the less. The Suckers left me with a nice bit of bruising.

They finished me off (almost literally) on an automated massage table (they had a whole assortment of them) that massaged and heated you from inside the table. It felt like piano hammers firing in a wildly synchronous and relaxing pattern. An hour and a half later after I arrived, I was walking home; a little less innocent that earlier that day, and with the marks to prove it.
I was later told that this was a Naturopathy clinic... figures.

After all that... the back feels a little better... and the total bill came to $5.
Not bad, and it makes for a good story.