I wanna have this disease!

Yesterday I saw a tweet on WeChat from my cousin in Tianjin China about her sadness over watching her son crying. I assumed it was because she had to leave her son with her grandparents in order to go to work. This morning she tweeted again: her son was suffering from Hand-Foot-Mouth Disease (HFMD) and she had paid 10,000 RMB for a one day stay at a local hospital! I was shocked-what treatment could have possibly cost so much for such a common disease in China? I pondered, "Was this a case of overtreatment or another overly common parent-orchestrated treatmentl?" Anyway this story reminded me of a post written 2 year ago after my son contracted HFMD...

I proudly played a family doctor for my children last week!

My toddler son Aaron suddenly came down with a fever for two consecutive nights, Friday and Saturday. We had no clue where this came from as we Chinese parents are always trying to dress our children seasonally or one layer more than the "American" parents do. :)

Fortunately, Aaron always responded well to acupuncture as he did when he had a bout of ear infections the previous year. With the ear infections he recoverd quickly even feeling well enough to have a great trip to SF Zoo that same weekend. However, this particular day we noticed that Aaron didn't want to have his shoes on. By Monday morning, we spotted a dozen of blisters on his feet and a couple more on his hands. Although he had no more fever, we still decided to take him to his pediatrician as we wondered if his chicken pox vaccination failed.

To our surprise, his doctor at Kaiser Permanente said Aaron caught hand foot and mouth disease! We were also told that there is no medicine to treat this disease, however, Aaron should eat some ice cream if his mouth hurts. :) After learning the special "prescription" for Aaron, my associate immediately shouted, "I wanna have this disease as well..." lol

I knew Aaron is such a sweet boy and always shares stuff with his sister: be it icecream or hand foot and mouth disease. Therefore, I had to give some preventative care to my teenage daughter. 

Fortunately, acupuncture works! :)

No expensive hospital stay needed!

​Frank He, L. Ac., QME