As mentioned in my previous article (in September 2024) “Update on Recovering from My Stroke,” I want to provide an update on my progress from recovering from my stroke, I want to report on the progress that I have made in just the last two weeks (since 12/8/2024). On 12/4/2024 , at the suggestion of my sister Mei (Tow) Lam of San Francisco, who has a close friend who mentioned to her about Dr. Qiong Zhang Shen (his Chinese name is Dr. Shen), a licensed acupuncturist and an Oriental Medicine doctor in San Francicco who treated her friend’s stroke. I immediately flew from New Jersey to San Francisco on 12/8/2024, and have seen Dr. Shen everyday for acupuncture treatment and Chinese herbal medicine treatment since arriving San Francisco on 12/8/2024 and continued to 12/19/2024.
Although normally the probability of success by acupuncture/Chinese herbal medicine (especially for Acupuncture treatment) should commenced immediately and before the 20th day after the stroke (in the case of my sister’s friend, Dr. Shen’s treatment began shortly after her stroke; in my case it didn’t occur until almost 15 months after my stroke (my stroke occurred on 9/23/2023). So, I did not have high expectation for me of Dr. Shen’s treatment.
Each time after my acupuncture treatment (normally lasting at least an hour, but usually lasting for two hours) by Dr. Shen, Dr. Shen also spends a lot of time massaging the patting all over my body, and then he also observes my walking back ane forth. Also he gives me Chinese herbal medicine almost every day; he said the Chinese herbal medicine complements the acupuncture treatment he gives me. And after a week of treatment, Dr. Shen on 12/14/2024 told me that I have made good progress, including establishing new neural nearby connections in my body to bypass the dead neural connections in that part of my body. I myself cannot come to that conclusion yet, because I would like to walk on a treatmill to see if I still drag my feet, and do slightly longer walking to determine how my feet behave. I won’t be able to do those things until I return to my New Jersey home on Dec. 20th.
I did return to NJ on Dec. 20. After settling down, I did at 1:00 AM (on 12/21) walked on my threadmill for 10 minutes and later in the evening of 12/21 at around 7:30 PM I did walk around for about 30 minutes on the inside of Bell Works (very near our house) for about 3/8 mile (the distance for the inside walk of Bell Works is about 1/4 or 2/8 mile). This was what I found. I did find some small improvements in my walking, including on my left foot. But I still find some dragging on my left foot, espececailly when I got a little tired, like in the last 2-3 minutes of that 10-minute on the threadmill. Normally I do the threadmill for bout 20-25 minutes. So the dragging should occur more often when I get tired during the last part of a 20-25 minute walk. During the evening walk on the inside of Bell Works, I also found that I often dragged my left foot, and still don’t walk quite naturally. So my conclusion is the following: The acupuncture and the oral herbal medicine have helped, but they have not helped me to recover completely yet. I think it will take more time and continued exercises for my recovery to continue to get back to my previous self. I will provide more updates in the future.
