EHE Clinic & Wellness

“Since nothing helps you,” my family doctor said, “surgery is your only recourse.” Here is how I met Dr. Joy Yang and how she set me free from my disease and brought me back to active life. In the fall 2016 semester, I was on sabbatical in Belarus, teaching one course at Belarusian State and doing research. Sometime in November, I began to feel pain to the left of my left knee, something reminiscent of what I had experienced many years ago, in 1989, when I was first diagnosed with herniated disk. After my ability to walk deteriorated, my friends in Minsk, Belarus, helped me to get an MRI. Indeed, it was the same diagnosis as in 1989, and I subsequently spent 11 days in a local hospital where they just alleviated my sufferings so I could at least fly back home. Upon my return, however, my situation became only marginally better due to my living at home, but the problem still bothered me. I was sent to physical therapy, which I used for several months and I also paid visits to a chiropractor. Nothing helped. Three times, an osteopath administered steroid shots into my spine, but this led to only a temporary 2-3-day relief. “Since nothing helps you,” my family doctor said, “surgery is your only recourse.” The osteopathic surgeon whom I visited in Roanoke in early late February 2017 confirmed that indeed only surgery can help. Since I wanted the procedure after the end of the semester, May 15 was determined as the day of surgery. On May 1, I was supposed to undergo some tests. However, about a week prior to May 1, I cancelled both tests and surgery. Why was I able to do that? The answer is I received crucial and entirely unexpected help in the meantime, that is, between late February and late April 2017. This is where Joy Yang comes into the picture. I have to say that I was afraid of surgery or rather of its potential side effects so I decided to follow the advice of my Washington-based colleague who had long suggested that I should find a genuine specialist in traditional Chinese medicine. With this in mind, I actually paid four visits to one self-proclaimed specialist in acupuncture, a professor of Virginia Tech. However, having paid not just visits but also quite a few dollars, I realized the guy was a charlatan. This is when I found Joy by simply browsing the web. By the time I located Dr. Yang and her EHE Clinic, I was already more than skeptical in regard to potential non-surgical help. Yet, I decided to try again out of sheer desperation but also because unlike that Virginia Tech professor, Dr. Joy Yang graduated from the Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine in China, one of top four schools of that type in China. Coupled with my lingering desire to avoid surgery Joy’s credentials offered me a glimmer of hope. Joy impressed me the very first time I came to see her. Having learned that my pain mostly concentrated under and to the left of my left knee, she began to press with her fingers in the area around my right shoulder. Apparently, she knew something about connections between different parts of the body. Once she found a certain pain control center, she used needles leaving me with those inserted into my flesh for some twenty minutes. Next time, she located yet another pain control center and again used needles, and so it went. Altogether, I made twelve visits to Joy’s clinic. I think I began to feel better after the second visit. Tangible improvement was nothing short of a miracle, as nothing had helped before. There is no doubt Joy knows something other practitioners authorized to help you with a herniated disk problem do not.  They are beholden to a routine beginning with exercise and culminating with invasive treatment that may or may not bring relief. In some cases, it does. In others, it does not, and side effects and relapses of the disease are most frequent. It is not by accident that Joy added to my misgivings by simply stating that once surgery is done I may not be receptive to her treatment. Not only Joy is knowledgeable about connections between different parts of human body. She possesses contagious enthusiasm that rubs off on you and is conducive to the desired outcome almost to the same degree as her knowledge, prowess, and manual dexterity. She reads your body and projects confidence and you began to feel confident, too. Joy’s demeanor radiates joy. Seems like a play on words, but it is also true. I feel I am immensely lucky that such a specialist is available in my area and that I found her. I am grateful to my Washington-based colleague who insisted that I find a true Chinese specialist. Most, of all, I am grateful to Joy Yang for bringing me back to life. It has been more than one year since I stopped paying regular visits to her and my problem has not come back.  On a separate note, when I read in Wikipedia that “scientific investigation has not found any histological or physiological evidence for traditional Chinese concepts such as qi, meridians, and acupuncture points, and many modern practitioners no longer support the existence of life force energy (qi) flowing through meridians,” I take it as an expression of competition. When applied by a knowledgeable person (sic!), the technique that is a couple of thousand years old does work, but the more people would be convinced of its healing properties, the fewer will buy expensive medications, use expensive surgery and depend on equally expensive medical insurance. Therefore, much is done to discredit traditional Chinese medicine and to minimize its market share. There is little doubt that its ensuing forbidden-fruit-like popularity and its reputation of last resort provides that multiple impostors practice pseudo-Chinese medicine and thus contribute to the denouncement of the entire school of thought on behalf of which they act. But just think about the number of poorly trained and irresponsible practitioners among certified Western-style medical doctors. Reliable and certified training, talent, and dedication are important in every area of human endeavor. Joy Yang is an embodiment of all those and my trust in her and her methods of treatment is rock-solid.