tianjin wrap-up...final report/ratings
hi all...after six months in the 'first teaching hospital for traditional chinese medicine' here's my final words before moving on to my current therapy: net result is that my arm improved...lying on my unaffected side i can raise it in the air...standing i can raise it la-terally with bent elbow (it's too difficult to keep it straight) to about shoulder height...i could not do this prior to january...that said, there's still really nothing i can functionally DO with my arm...my shoulder is still subluxated...no improvement there...my hand/wrist/fingers showed no change whatsoever...my ankle/tibialis anterior showed no significant improvement...meaning my walking is basically the same in spite of the stair climbing... given that i got to this hospital 10 months post stroke and given all the various therapies i did prior to my arrival, i feel a deep sense of disappointment in my lack of healing thusfar ...i am grateful for the gains my arm made and i haven't thrown in the towel yet...far from it...i'm sure most of you would categorically tell me that it wasn't worth $30K+, and you could be right, but i still believe in acupuncture and will continue to receive it, both for stroke recovery and general health maintenance...i do not regret the six months i spent in tianjin but i do have more to say about it...although they do get results with some people a few years out (tho not many...most people leave in very similar shape as when they arrived) from a stroke, their best results happen when a survivor gets there as soon after the stroke as possible...i've blogged about how bad the exercise/pt there is, so no sense repeating myself...i'll wrap up this part of the program by saying that no stroke survivor should be subjected to such inadequate care...it's disrespectful and unacceptable...my final rating for this area is P for Pathetic...the acupuncture is generally very good altho it does depend on who you get as there are several providers...overall i'll give this part of the program a G for Good...unfortunately i've found the administrators and some of the doctors as well to be highly unethical and direly lacking in integrity at times...after all the time i spent there i came to firmly believe that the emphasis is NOT on patient results but rather on the patients' money...the chinese in general now are like the way many ameri-cans were in decades past (of course many still are)...obsessed with money and getting rich...this sadly plays a large role in the program bringing americans over who pay a fortune for the same services that no ordinary chinese family could come close to affording...in my time there i learned too much about kickbacks, which happen with virtually every american dollar that is spent there and vastly inflated prices for westerners...for these reasons, among others, i'll rate the way the program is adminis-tered with a big fat S for Shame... please keep in mind that i do not have an ax to grind with anyone and that i left that hospital on good terms...but i do feel that it's my duty to report to other stroke survivors my authentic experience...i would not go back to this particular hospital but in the same breath i would not tell anyone else not to go...a stroke is too serious for me to categorically tell anyone what to do or where to go/not go...i've tried to stick to the basics in this brief summary...if anyone has any particular questions that have not already been addressed please ask me...
i'll continue to blog from the tiantan puhua hospital in beijing...their website is:
www.stemcellspuhua.com
sending all my best, richxxx
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