My quest to find a cure for my skin condition led me to Chichou province in Southern China. A relative of mine specialises in taking Hong Kong patients to see this doctor, those whom couldn't be cured in HK.
After a gruelling 5 hour bus ride we made it to Zhongshan where the doctor is. Actually we had to further take 45 min taxi ride in the most dingy vehicle, felt like it was gonna fall apart.
Arriving at the doc's, my first impression was how rural the place was, but of course the surrounding farms and runaway hens gave it away. Even then there were about 60 villagers ahead of us which ended up in a 2 hour wait. Luckily my relative knew the doc's family so were able to chill upstairs in their spacious apartment.
While others waited in line for us I tagged along to the local marketplace. I tell ya, any hygiene or health officer from any Western country would have a heart attack if they saw this place! One butcher didn't wear any aprons, gloves or mask, the meat was on this rusty wooden chopping board with flies hovering around, plus he was smoking! Yet since they've probably been buying meat like this from hundreds of years, alot of them would've died from some sort of food poisoning.. but hell I wouldn't buy it.
So it was my turn to see the mystical doctor. Took a few glances at my palms & feet, took my pulse, muttered something into what my relative translated as 'material poisoning' and that he couldn't do anything for me... my heart just dropped. Firstly because of his diagnosis, but also because I had always thought I had some sort of Tinea or Eczema so that added to the shock. But eventually he decided to give me some medicine for it. But after that you can see my pessimism towards this treatment if he didn't want to treat me at first. I consulted my dermatologist here and she followed up by saying it's a form of Contact Dermatitis and recommends for a patch test.
So once again I'm back to square one. I was so sure it was Tinea, maybe because I know it's easiest to cure, but now with this new situation (which i'm not still not 100% sure) I feel like as if nothing's been going right for me all this time since these damn blisters appeared. It's always hard to know if any particular type of medicine's working for these blisters/rashes come in cycles, so I'm not always sure if the medicine's working or just the phase itself. Luckily time is something I have for the moment, I'm sure most Hong Konger's don't have the luxury or time to treat such a condition. So i'll just have to start over again.
posted by Ed @ 9:35 PM
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