Last week I went on a day trip to Muju to go skiing.  No great pictures of that event – you’ve all seen snow and people so bundled up you can’t tell who is who.

One souvenir I brought home, though, was a sprained ankle.   I had fallen a couple of times during the day, most of them no big deal. Once, though, I was coming down pretty quickly and took a hard fall. It hurt just a tad, but I got up and kept on skiing. When I got home that night and had a chance to relax, my ankle swelled up like a dead dog in the summer sun.

I limped around on it on Sunday and Monday and then on Tuesday decided I’d better get it looked at.  Since I knew nothing was broken, I went to the acupuncturist. They are plentiful and cheap here in Korea. I walked right in – no appointment needed and was immediately dealt with by nurses and the Dr.  I’ve been going to see this guy for a few years and his English has gotten quite good. He explained exactly what I’d done and how he would treat it.

First, he stabbed me with a half-dozen needles. Most were in the ankle, but some were even up around my knee. The idea behind accupuncture is that the body channels energy along pathways and the needles help focus the flow and the body’s healing power to a specific area. The red tint to the picture above is the heat lamp he placed to warm the leg. The needles stayed in for about 15-20 minutes.

Then he put on a couple of spongy suction cups that sucked, writhed and pushed my ankle. These too, help focus the body’s energy, but also massage the muscles and tendons. This was actually damn relaxing. They felt like little hands kneading and massaging. That lasted another 15-20 minutes.

When that was finished, I got the Bu-Hong treatment. That’s actually the most medieval part of the ordeal. The nurse attached a suction cup to my ankle and pulled on it a couple of times, giving me a small hickey. Then she pricked the skin with a mini knife and applied the suction cup again. The idea here is draw out the bad blood around the injury. I suppose this was the same idea of the European surgeons using leaches back in the olde days. I tried to take a picture of this, but my squirming knocked off the suction cup and spilled the few tablespoons of blood in it out on the table and floor. They weren’t real happy with me.

Then they put a hot pad on me for 10 minutes and then put me on a hot-water jet massage bed for another 10 minutes.  I could live on that thing. It felt wonderful to have two hard jets of warm water massage my back, neck, butt  and thighs. Because it’s all inside the rubber mattress, no mess, no fuss.

Then they sent me home. I went back the next day, too. My ankle feels not perfect, but damn good. A lot better than if I’d done nothing.

My wallet feels a lot better than if I’d have injured it back in the good ol’ US of A, too.

Total cost for this fine-ass treatment? US$5 each day. No insurance needed.

The US Congress could benefit from a look at how Korea does their health care.