Introduction to Way of the Caveman Healer

When I was a boy growing up in western Japan, I liked to explore the hills behind my house.  One of my favorite places, past the junior high school and the bamboo forest, was an archeological site where I would play in the reconstructed prehistoric dwellings of the people who lived in my area a long time ago.  What was life like for them?  I imagined myself as a caveman, making fires, pretending to hunt game and gather greens.  There was a river not too far away, and I would make excursions to wash myself in a small waterfall, to drink the sweet water.  When it got dark I would head home, and as my eyes took in the setting sun I wondered what the cavemen [1] thought and felt when they gazed at the sun or contemplated the starry sky.

Many years later, I studied anthropology as a university student.  I wanted to understand the phenomenon of human beings, why we do the things we do, how we got to be the way that we are.  I would say that the single best thing that came out of my anthropological education is the evolutionary perspective – the idea that we, along with the rest of life on our planet, are constantly evolving: not evolving towards some kind of physical or spiritual perfection (that would be the outdated medieval view, which places humans at the pinnacle of earthly creation and closer to God at every step, as well as the current New Age view, both of which I reject), but simply adapting as a species to our changing environment.  Based on the evidence, I came to the conclusion that the cavemen were basically just like us, minus the cars and supermarkets and iPods.  They were smart, they almost certainly used language, they solved their problems using their large brains and opposable thumbs, just like we do.  I’m convinced that cavemen loved their children just like we love ours.

Growing up in Japan, and through the practice of martial arts, I was exposed at an early age to some of the ideas behind East Asian healing arts – ideas like qi, the universal matter/energy, and tsubo, or places on the body where one could access the qi flowing through the body to affect health.  After college, I became a high school teacher and spent a couple years teaching in a school district that was about to go under, and subsequently (as one of the younger untenured teachers) lost my job.  The pressures of teaching in a moribund school in an intense urban setting, and the trauma of losing my job, left me with the conviction that I should switch careers and help people one-on-one in some capacity.  Encouraged by my taiji teacher, who was an acupuncturist, I ended up getting my master’s degree in traditional Chinese medicine, and became a licensed acupuncturist in the state of California.

I loved school and I continue to love Chinese medicine!  I was fascinated with herbal medicine, with how leaves and flowers and bark and insect parts could affect the human body.  It boggled my mind that over thousands of years, the ancient Chinese healers figured out the properties of these hundreds of substances, and that what I was learning was a body of knowledge that had been passed on uninterrupted for so many generations.  When I first pierced the skin of a hapless classmate with a metal needle I experienced an intense initiatory rush, like I had just stepped into an ancient tradition with roots planted firmly in Paleolithic times.  In fact, as I immersed myself in this healing system whose medical terminology consisted of words like wind, dampness, fire, and earth, I found myself transported back to an earlier time when humans related to their bodies and their environment in a direct way.  By considering themselves to be an integral part of nature, rather than separate from and above nature, the ancient Chinese doctors created a superior system of healing that to this day helps millions of people with their pain, their menstrual cramps, their indigestion, their insomnia, and many other ills.  I am convinced that one reason for its success and survival is that Chinese medicine retains a connection to its prehistoric heritage, that it incorporates the awareness that early humans had for their bodies and their environment, an awareness that many of us have since lost.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  Chinese medicine is a sophisticated rational medical system that has been through continuous refinement since its earliest days.  I’m sure there are practitioners and scholars of Chinese medicine who would take offense at having the word “caveman” associated with this jewel of Chinese civilization.  But I would remind them that from its earliest days, Chinese medicine has looked back to a golden age in which people were healthier and wiser.  Earlier in my career I dismissed this veneration of ancient times as a Chinese cultural trait that only existed to legitimize the present by linking it to a glorious and more perfect past.  Now, I wonder if in fact this backward-looking is a yearning for a time prior to war, prior to agriculture, prior to civilization itself: a distant memory of the time of the caveman.

And, at a fundamental level, it’s hard to deny that the logic and methods of Chinese medicine hark back to the medicine men of old.  In fact, according to Richard Grossinger in his far-ranging Planet Medicine, “It is no exaggeration to think of the Yellow Emperor as one of our only guides to late Stone Age medicine [2].”  Cold stomach? Warm it up!  Hot blood?  Lance the skin to let it out!  Wind and dampness penetrating the hip?  Burn a pile of dried mugwort over it and drive out the evil influences!  When I treat and advise patients, it is easy to find myself channeling some Central Asian shaman, scraping the skin with a water buffalo horn or patiently waiting for the qi to arrive between my fingertips as I hold a gold needle to their skin.

From an anthropological standpoint, traditional Chinese medicine and the other nonconventional healing methods that are so popular today present a cultural critique of our modern world and its healthcare.  So many of our health problems stem from the strains placed on us by modernization.  From the epidemic of metabolic syndrome and diabetes that has resulted from our inability to adjust to the massive influx of sugar and processed foods in our diet, to the host of stress-related illnesses that afflict us because we have to work so hard in highly artificial environments just so we can place a roof over our heads and food on the table, to the disruptions to our delicate endocrine systems due to minute amounts of hormone-like chemicals in our plastic food containers and in the water we drink, we suffer from the consequences of our rapid industrialization and modernization.  When a healer - or a patient - embraces Chinese medicine, he or she admits on some level that there is something wrong with conventional healthcare.  Often, this admission leads to a realization that there is also something wrong with the modern society that produced it, and that produced our bad habits and bad health.

So the common sense health advice of the Chinese medicine practitioner can be taken as a gentle reminder that we should get back to our caveman roots and live more balanced lives.  Simply stated, the Way of the Caveman Healer is an approach to managing the ill effects of civilization to regain your health and sanity.  My hope is that, regardless of your current state of health, the Way of the Caveman Healer will provide you with ideas and tools to cope with the stresses and strains of modern living and help to increase your appreciation and enjoyment of life.

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[1] When I write “cavemen,” of course what I mean is prehistoric humans of both sexes.  But “cavemen and cavewomen” is quite a mouthful, and “cavepeople” just doesn’t sound right, so I have it as “cavemen” and “caveman” for the sake of convenience and easy reading.  I am not writing specifically about the Cro-Magnon or the Neanderthals or any other single type of early humans, preferring instead to use the term “cavemen” to refer to prehistoric humans generally.

[2] Richard Grossinger, Planet Medicine: From Stone-Age Shamanism to Post-Industrial Healing, North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, 1980. Grossinger is referring to the Huangdi Neijing, or The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine, one of the oldest preserved books of traditional Chinese medicine, dating back some 3,000 years.  It still forms the basis of the Chinese medical theory that acupuncturists use today.

Simple Horse

My people are a simple people.  We are strict, but we laugh a lot.  We have tender hearts and cry easily.  We are quick to anger and have a righteous streak.  We are opinionated and stubborn.  We are more about raising children and vegetables than building empires.  We like to work with our hands.  More than a hint of OCD.  A bit on the nerdy side.  Though I am a Horse by birth, I am of the Bear Clan on all sides: the Bernese bear on the Swiss, the ancient waguma totem on the Japanese, and of course the NorCal grizzly through and through.  My wife says I walk like a bear.  Since she is also a bear (a mighty Mama Polar Bear) perhaps she knows it when she sees other bears.

(I am also a Monkey, but for today let's focus on just one of my Multiple Animal Personalities).

I was born in 1966, which makes me a Horse.  A Fire Horse: dangerous yang.  Lucky for me, my wonderful wife is a Water Tiger, which balances my recklessness.  I like to think that the Fire fuels my imagination, keeps me going, and warms those I love.

As a Simple Horse I do not like being corralled.  It is hard for me to get with the program, unless it’s my program.  When I am doing what I want to do, I am enthusiastic and fun to be around, and, I like to think, good at what I do.  When I’m not doing what I want to do I get grumpy and people around me start to complain.

Simple Horse likes to wander the margin, the hinterlands, the zone where society and family and work on the one side lap up against the vast wilds of Nature and Mind on the other.  Maybe I am an Edgetarian.  I believe that this in-between world is a source of great healing power, and that while being healthy has a lot to do with genetics, personal awareness and good habits, it also has to do with resonance and flow and ease.  When I am in the zone, those around me flow easier too, with an overall positive impact on their health and well-being.  At least, that is part of my narrative about being a Stone Age healer in the 21^st century.

As a Simple Horse, my attitude towards medicine is very straightforward.  I do not hide behind esoteric theories and white coat attitude. Where there is Stagnation, break it up!  If there is Cold, warm it up!  If there is Heat, cool it down! Drain what is Full and nourish what is Empty.  If you are stuck in your head I will get you in your body.  If you are stuck in your body I will get things moving again.  I’ll probably tell you to take a hike or roll around on the ground.  If you are eating crap I will tell you to stop it, and maybe share some recipes. If you are running around like crazy I will tell you to take a break.  For most people, slowing down is the important thing.  That’s why my clinic is more like an inn than a clinic – a place where you can take a break, enjoy a cup of tea or some herbal liqueur, lie down and relax.  Tell me what is bothering you and I will roll up my sleeves and do my best to help you feel better.  Once you have rested, and feel better, you are better equipped to be on your Way.  And so, you leave the inn and continue on your journey.

Broadly speaking, Simple Horse does not believe in Riders.  Why would I let someone ride me around?  How undignified! Some say the Animal somehow creates the Rider, and that when the Animal dies the Rider vanishes.  Others say the Rider sneaks onto the Animal at conception, when the Animal is still a little jellyroll.  Some believe that when the Animal dies the Rider flies away to a special beautiful place where Riders go to live forever.  I am a Simple Horse.  All I can say is that here I am, it’s pretty great much of the time and not as great other times, and no sign of a Rider anywhere, or of the vast shining retirement home where they all go when we die.

(Some would point out, is it the Animal or the Rider who is writing these words?  Touché.  I would respond that a Brain may equal a Mind, but that a Mind does not necessarily equal a Soul much less a Spirit or even a Self.)

But I do not like to spend too much time pondering existential or theological questions.  My approach is entirely postmodern and phenomenological.  You don’t have to believe anything!  God, qi, the five elements, the authority of doctors or states, it’s all irrelevant.  You just have to embrace the responsibility and experience of having a body, of being an Animal on this amazing Earth with its self-renewing creatures of green and red that eat each other, constantly becoming each other in this ever-transforming thin film of life.  Sometimes I am in awe.  Mostly I just try to appreciate.

My ancestors were awesome!  They were civil servants, newspapermen, tinkers, and farmers. In the last few centuries it seems there was a lake involved.  My Japanese side are Ikeda and Ikeshita, the “Rice Paddy by the Lake” and “Below the Lake,” respectively, and the Swiss side has long resided on the shores of Lake Zurich, wandering there over several generations from Walkringen in the Bernese mountains.  They foraged for mushrooms, they picked and dried flowers and berries, they made liquor out of hardy alpine roots and crisp apples, traded with the folk who came by river from the lowlands.  My Japanese ancestors traveled to the city, they paid in gold and silver for precious powders made by priests who had learned the medicine in China.  My ancestors were bathhouse tenders, preachers, innkeepers.  At some point they were millers.  But mostly farmers and herders.  And before that, for a long, long time, my ancestors – and your ancestors too! - were tracking and hunting other Animals and digging in the dirt for tubers.  They were warming themselves around the fire, they were snuggled together in furs, they washed and reveled in the cold water of the stream, they looked up at the starry sky and wondered.  We are still basically them, plus a bunch of technology and brainwashing.

My ancestors were awesome.  Yours were awesome too; all their adventures and love affairs resulted in you. 

So, I say, learn what we can from our awesome ancestors!  Don’t take so seriously the trappings of status and society.  They’re not what make you happy, and they’re certainly not what make you healthy.

Fortunately, there’s no need to turn into an obsessed and fanatical extremist.  This is not paleo-nonsense, it is not juicing and colonics and 100% organic grass-fed buffalo meat.  It’s just common sense.  One could say, Horse Sense.  Eat real food.  Move your body.  Play.  Love.  Stuff like that.

I am Simple Horse.  I invite you to join me on the Way of the Caveman Healer.

Happy New Year 2014, Year of the Wood Horse!  May you gallop free and strong!  May the rains fall and the plants grow!  Blessings blessing blessings to all!

A Simple Treatment for Taxol Chemotherapy-Induced Peripheral Neuropathy

About six years ago I started working at a cancer treatment center whose principal doctors, bless their hearts, were open to the idea of their patients utilizing acupuncture as part of their supportive care.  Before I started, I had to attend an interview with the doctors.  One of them asked me if acupuncture could treat peripheral neuropathy.  I wasn't even sure what that was, but automatically replied "Yes!" because I really wanted the job.  Then I went home and read up on neuropathy.  As it turns out, peripheral neuropathy is the medical term for the the numbness, tingling, and pain that can be caused by a number of things, including certain types of chemotherapy.

Sure enough, pretty soon I started seeing patients who complained of exactly these symptoms.  Some got it in the feet.  Most got it in the hands, particularly in the pads of their fingers.  A few got it in their fingernails, resulting in loose nails that seemed like they were on their way to falling out.  Most of these patients were being treated for breast cancer and were on a regimen of the chemotherapeutic agent called Taxol.  A few had other cancers and were on other drugs, such as cisplatin or oxaliplatin.  I tried all kinds of approaches to treat the neuropathy, from standard acupuncture to non-insertive Japanese acupuncture to cold laser to electrostim.  Nothing seemed to help very much.

One day I was inspired to bleed my next neuropathy patient.  In the style of Japanese acupuncture that I practice, we are taught to make a tiny incision and draw a small amount of blood wherever we find "blood stasis."  Typically, blood stasis is indicated by small purplish venules, which we then prick and squeeze to extract a few drops of blood.  But, it occurred to me, the numbness and tingling that characterize peripheral neuropathy could also be symptoms of blood stasis, even with no obvious venules.  So, using a lancet, I bled my next patient, making a small incision near the center of each fingerpad, three or four millimeters from the fingernail.  Quite miraculously, this seemed to work quite well!  In some cases, the neuropathy decreased right there on the table.  In most cases, several such treatments eliminated the symptoms.  Some took longer, and those who had had chemo months or years before and still suffered from neuropathy took the longest.  This technique seems to work well for Taxol but not for the other drugs.  And it works better on the hands than on the feet, though I have had success with foot neuropathy as well.  It is less effective for nailbed neuropathy, even when the causative agent is Taxol (I still do bleed for nailbed neuropathy, though at the corners of the nails rather than on the fingerpads).

I'm not sure why it works, scientifically speaking.  I doubt that it's due to the elimination of toxic chemo agents from the flesh of the fingertips, since the amount of extracted blood is so small.  My suspicion is that the healing is a hormetic effect, which is to say a very small negative impact makes the body respond with a positive effect.  I theorize that the body reacts to the incision by sending chemicals to repel any microbial invaders and heal the wound, and almost as a side effect the affected nerves are also healed.  Perhaps the small capillaries in the extremities are affected by the chemo and work less efficiently than they need to to draw the drug away from the nerves there.  Then, when the skin gets pricked, they perk up and do their job better.

I am not a researcher and have done no true clinical studies on this method, though it would be easy enough to do with a large enough patient population.  But my own experience convinces me that this is a valuable and simple treatment method for Taxol-induced peripheral neuropathy, so I am putting it out there in the hope that it will help many more people.  If you are suffering from chemo-induced neuropathy, I encourage you to try it yourself, or have somebody else do it for you.  Just get a pack of lancets at the drugstore (the kind diabetics use to get a drop of blood), and disinfect before and after with rubbing alcohol to avoid any potential infection (especially if your white blood cell count is low).  Very quickly poke each affected fingerpad, then squeeze out 5-20 drops of blood and wipe with a cotton ball.  Do this a couple times a week for a couple weeks, to give it a fair shake.  Good luck!

The Virtues of Gentle Exercise

East Asian medicine, always ahead of its time, has long stressed the importance of exercise when it comes to maintaining health. Yet, with our culturally-conditioned preconception of fitness as having to do with aerobic exercise and its cardiovascular benefits, it is easy to dismiss Chinese health exercises, at first glance, as soft and ineffectual.

I remember when I was eighteen or nineteen, my roommate introduced me to a Chinese health exercise known as Ba Duan Jin, or the Eight Pieces of Brocade. As a longtime martial artist who was accustomed to doing "real exercise" with exciting leaps, spinning kicks, and sparring that got you real sweaty and tired, I smiled to myself as we went through the eight gentle calisthenics. There was one where you raise your arms up over your head, palms to the sky, as you breath in. In another, you stand in a low horse stance while turning your torso sideways and making a motion like you're an archer pulling a bow. Another one has you stand straight and gently turn your head from side to side. You get the picture: boring!

I dismissed the Eight Pieces of Brocade as a useless exercise that fell in the same category as the calisthenics that you see old Asian people doing in the park in the early morning, forming a big circle around the pile of their backpacks and thermoses, circling the wagons so gui luo thugs can't steal their belongings.

Years later, when I was in acupuncture school, I was re-introduced to the Ba Duan Jin by a wonderful kung fu teacher named Linda Darrigo. As an earnest student of traditional Chinese medicine, I practiced faithfully, paying more attention to my breathing and the movement of qi (internal energy) within my body in the hope that this would make me a better doctor. But, as I got caught up in the excitement of treating patients in the student clinic, my interest waned and I stopped practicing the exercises.

Now that I'm pushing forty and discovering that my body doesn't maintain its elasticity all by itself, and that injuries that would have fixed themselves ten years ago now stick around for months and turn into chronic pain, I have developed a new regard for the Eight Pieces of Brocade. I'm realizing that there is great wisdom in this type of exercise that moves every body part in a gentle manner but with a big range of motion. You see, as we get older, we tend to settle into a very limited range of movements. If you're like me, you very seldom have to reach your arm higher than the level of your shoulders in your daily life. It's no wonder that people get "Fifty-Year Shoulder," if they've stopped moving the shoulder joint through its natural arc. The same is true of all our other moving parts, but especially our backs because with our sedentary lifestyles it's just as easy to stop moving the back through its range of motion as it is the shoulder. How often are you doing something other than sitting, standing, walking, driving, or lying down?

Doing your daily Eight Pieces of Brocade, with their gentle flowing, twisting, and bending movements, can really help to combat the stiffening that comes with age and inactivity, and the injuries that come with that stiffening. Come by the clinic sometime and I'll show you the movements. If I get my shit together I'll even have a handout for you to refer to when you do them at home. Aside from the value of the exercises themselves, there's something very healing about starting each day with some fresh morning air and the day's first light on your face, your body and mind waking up as the world wakes up around you.

Vicodin-Assisted Physical Therapy

Some weeks ago I woke up one morning, and before my bones had a chance to settle in, squatted down to pet our cat. The next thing I knew, I was seized with a terrible pain, and I knew that my upper back had gone out. It felt like some kind of structural slippage, like a rib attachment to the backbone sliding out of kilter, so after four or five days of hoping it would get better by itself, I went to a chiropractor that one of my patients recommended. He proceeded to crack my back, measure my legs, etc., and I went on my way. Unfortunately there was no difference in my level of discomfort. It hurt so much that I could barely shift gears in my car, or put my backpack on.

So I took matters into my own hands. I took an extra-strength Vicodin, and an hour or so later, as I slowly began to feel my consciousness disengage from the Sex and the City that my wife Annette was watching, I placed a hard rubber ball on the floor and lied down on it. I had tried this the day before, since the ball - a medium-sized bouncy ball a little smaller than a tennis ball - generally works great for sore spots on the back, but my back muscles were so seized up that the ball was unbearably painful.

With the Vicodin, the ball was painful but not unbearably so. For about an hour, I lay on the floor, shifting the ball every few minutes and making big circles with my left arm. As I inched the ball towards the epicenter of pain between my left shoulder blade and backbone, it got more and more painful. As I made the big circles with my arm, layers of muscle and fascia would shift and I would find new positions of ever more extreme pain. I would hold the arm position until the pain subsided, then moved on to the next position of pain.

In case I'm sounding like I like pain, I should point out that I dislike pain very much (hence the Vicodin). In fact, I was inspired to use the rubber ball as a therapeutic tool after surviving a treatment by a Korean healer named White Cloud, who tortured me with a pair of stone balls for half an hour or so. I vowed that I would never inflict such pain on anybody in the name of healing. But, time passed, and I got worked on by White Cloud's disciple Andy, who is one of my best friends. Andy took a gentler approach, and I had to admit that the ball was a wonderful healing tool. The great thing about using the ball on yourself is that you get to control the level of pain you inflict on yourself. The great thing about using the Vicodin is that you get to open up places that would have been too painful to approach without the narcotic.

To make a long story a little less long, the next day my pain was about 90% better. Yesterday I had the opportunity to try Vicodin-Assisted Physical Therapy again, after messing up my lower back. I first got an acupuncture treatment from my colleague Ben Zappin (Ben runs the best herb pharmacy in town; call him at Five Flavors Herbal Pharmacy 831-239-6900 for all your herb needs). It was a great treatment, but, eager to try VAPT again, I raced home, popped a Vicodin, and got out my ball. Today, thanks to Ben and my home treatment, my back is about 60% better. After another round of VAPT, I'm sure I'll be back to normal. Trouble is, I'm running out of Vicodin. If you have any, please find a way to send it to me ASAP.

*Please note that the activities described in this post are those of a fictional persona named Soma Uemura, and that the real-life author does not in any way advocate the illegal use of Vicodin without a prescription.

Treating Poison Oak

Summer and fall are the seasons when many people go hiking and camping to enjoy the outdoors. Inevitably, some of those people are going to come down with cases of poison oak dermatitis. Typically, a day or two after contact, they will notice raised red spots and intense itching at the places where the poison oak scratched them. If left untreated, those areas can get quite swollen and even painful (they will be painful AND itchy, not just painful), and the raised bumps may crack and ooze. The offending chemical in the plant's oil, urushiol, can also rub off the points of initial contact and cause itching at secondary sites. All in all, it's a very unpleasant affair that lasts a couple of weeks. Fortunately, there is a lot you can do to avoid it, and failing that, to treat it very effectively. I will outline here my basic approach, perfected over years of suffering and experimentation. I just got back from backpacking with buddies Dave and Andy, and Dave ended up with some real bad poison oak, thus inspiring this post.

1. DON"T GET IT IN THE FIRST PLACE.
This doesn't have to involve avoiding wild areas. Educate yourself as to what poison oak looks like in every season. Google "poison oak" (or, on the East Coast, "poison ivy") and take a look at photos of the plant. Better yet, go on a hike with someone who is familiar with poison oak and have him point the plant out to you. Then, when you are hiking and exploring in the woods, be careful and respectful. Poison Oak is one of the great teachers of the forest, and its lessons are awareness and humility. We left the forests a couple of million years ago, and when we return to them now, we are visitors. If we break the rules of care and appreciation, if we stumble through like bulls in the china shop, we are bound to pay in some way, and a couple weeks of itching is one of the less subtle ways that we can pay.

2. ONCE YOU'RE HOME, ACT AS IF YOU HAVE BRUSHED AGAINST IT.
Do this even if you are quite positive that you were very careful and attentive and avoided all the poison oak that you saw. I cannot tell you how many times I skipped this step and then started itching a couple days later. The main thing you want to do is go to the drugstore and buy a bottle of a product called TEKNU. TEKNU, as far as I can tell, is a kind of body lotion made out of mineral spirits. You rub it on your arms, legs, neck, face, any body part that might possibly have been exposed. You leave it on for a few minutes, then you rub the excess off with a paper towel. This serves to dissolve the offending urushiol, which you then remove with the paper towel. Finally, take a shower to wash off the remaining TEKNU plus urushiol.

3. IF YOU GET ITCHY DESPITE FOLLOWING THE STEPS ABOVE, USE A SEVEN-STAR HAMMER.
This is the single most effective natural poison oak treatment option available. The seven-star hammer, also known as the plum-blossom needle, is an acupuncture tool consisting of a flexible plastic handle and a small hammerhead with a number of sharp needles sticking out. If you are an acupuncturist, the best thing to do for your patients who are suffering from poison oak dermatitis is to send them home with a seven-star hammer of their own, to self-treat at home. If you are not an acupuncturist, go to your acupuncturist and ask her to give you one of these miracle-working implements. This is what you do: the minute you notice an itchy area, get out your seven-star hammer and pound the heck out of the itchy area. Actually, all you have to do is tap lightly all around, preferably until you draw a little blood. Then, wipe the area with a cotton ball soaked with rubbing alcohol. The itching will go away, usually for a whole day. If it starts itching again, pound and disinfect again. Repeat for all new areas that begin to itch. Following this procedure will usually keep your dermatitis from getting to the nasty, inflamed, oozing, crusty phase. And you will be virtually itch-free for the two weeks or so that it takes for the poison oak reaction to completely subside. I'm not sure why this method works so well when regular scratching with the fingernails usually makes the itching worse, but it does work!

4. IF YOU ARE STILL ITCHY EVEN AFTER THE SEVEN-STAR HAMMER, USE TOPICAL MEDICATIONS.
You can try calamine lotion, calendula gel, the Chinese burn ointment called Ching Wan Hung (a.k.a. Jing Wan Hong), thinned down yerba santa/grindelia tincture, witch hazel, tea tree oil, aloe vera gel, hydrocortisone creme, or any of the pharmaceutical or herbal treatments that are available commercially. In my experience, the seven-star hammer is vastly superior to any topical preparation, as a primary treatment. But if you are still itching, try whatever is available.

5. AS A FINAL RESORT, OR IN CONJUNCTION WITH TOPICAL TREATMENT, USE INTERNAL MEDICATIONS.
If you are still itching after all of the above, treat the problem from the inside. If you are in really bad shape, with a thigh that is as thick as a tree trunk, or a face that looks like the Elephant Man, you should probably go to the doctor and get a cortisone shot (but beware - long ago, before I knew anything of the Healing Secrets of the East, I got a cortisone shot after my first bad poison oak attack, and it got even worse because it turned out I was allergic to something in the preparation! Oral cortisone did the trick). Less extreme options include homeopathic Rhus toxicodendron 200C ("potentized" poison oak extract); Chinese herbs to clear heat and toxin and cool blood heat such as rhubarb root, phellodendron, honeysuckle, and coptis; and cooling, detoxifying foods such as watermelon and mung bean. My experience with internal treatments for poison oak is that they are hit or miss - they seem to work sometimes, and other times not at all.

I will end with a few words about poison oak "vaccinations." There is this idea out there that you can immunize yourself against poison oak by ingesting small amounts of it early in the season. Being of an experimental bent, I have tried this out on several occasions. The first time, I made an alchohol extract of fresh poison oak, thinking I would take a daily dose of a few drops in water, increasing the dose each day. But I was not disciplined enough, and ended up forgetting to take my dose a lot of the time. Another time, I ate a few fresh poison oak flowers when they were in bloom, thinking the flowers might not be as oily and hence as toxic as the leaves or stems. That particular year I didn't experience any bad rashes, but I don't know whether it was because of the flowers or because by that time I had learned to be more careful in the woods. Last year I ate a couple of poison oak berries and ended up with an itchy butt for a week or so. I was not scientific to the point of purposely scratching myself with poison oak after these attempts at vaccination, and my results are overall inconclusive. If you are thinking of trying to immunize yourself against poison oak, I can only say: proceed at your own risk.

Whatever else you may have gotten out of this post, if you do nothing else, get yourself a seven-star hammer if you're going to be spending any time out in nature.