This is the narration of a woman who got diagnosed with scleroderma.
This woman is my mother. She was a very active woman. From
what I recalled she always had a very active lifestyle. During Elementary and
Middle school she would walk with my brother to school, during the time my
brother and I were attending First Communion Classes we would all ride our
bikes together to the church.
That all changed about three years ago. My mother’s energy
levels began to decrease dramatically and began to feel a tingling sensation in
her hands. Slowly she began to lose the strength in her hands and legs. She
fell several times because the strength in her legs was not enough to support
her. Meanwhile she was attending to the
doctor and they would not able to tell her a diagnostics. The time pass and her
condition got worst until February 2012 when the doctors finally told her that
she had Scleroderma. At that time the pain she was getting was really bad. The
pain wouldn’t let her sleep, she was suffering. She looked online to see if
anybody had some cures with Natural medicine. She found this man from Peru, who
had a similar disease and through consuming certain supplements and vitamins
got better. My mom took what that man
said but her condition did not improve, It only keep getting worst.
My mom got desperate and one day she was walking in a Swap
Meet that is located in the San Fernando Valley in Sun Valley. She noticed that
a Acupuncturist had a little shop there. When she got home she told me if I could take her
to that man the following week. The next
week we took a trip to the that acupuncturist. His name is Dr. Lee, he
practices Korean Medicine. Sometimes its hard to understand what he is saying
but he has a lot of knowledge.
When we got there he greeted us and asked us what the
condition was. I told him my mom was diagnosed with scleroderma, and he seemed
like he never heard of that before. He took out an old book from his shelve and
asked me to write down the disease in a paper. He looked it up in his book,
that only had the name of the diseases in English but the descriptions were
written in Korean. Then he began to ask
my mom about the symptoms she had. Without us telling him, he asked about the
skin loosing elasticity and becoming really hard, about the pain she kept on
getting, the loss of strength in her limbs. I was amazed by that because from
the research I did on scleroderma it said that there was not a lot of
information on it but yet this man with his old book knew the symptoms. Then he
said that he would be able to cure my mom. He said it would be a lengthy
process but at the end she would feel better. He said since it was a really
hard disease to battle it would take months and my mom would have to go at
least once a week but it would be better if we went two times per week.
At that point my mom skin was really tight, every day she
would be in pain, her skin of her face was getting really pale, she began to
lose strength in her legs so much that she fell down multiple times, she had
trouble by doing simple actions such as combing her hair. Her hands would turn
purple when she would touch hot or cold water, and she would need to take pain
killers daily in order to calm the pain. Multiple times she felt like she was choking
at night because of the food returning
and almost blocking the breathing pathway. It was really sad to see a woman
that was really active not being able to function the way she always had.
After the first treatment my mom felt somewhat better. He
said to start of he was going to help her sleep better. After treating her with
accupunture, heating therapy, and electro therapy immediately she began to be
able to sleep better. The incidents
where she would be chocking diminished. The pain that she felt when she was
turning did not wake her up.
Today about six month after the first treatment my mom’s
skin smother, the color on her face is no longer pale and it almost looks like
it did before. My mom hardly takes any
pain killer because the pain she used to get is no longer there. Her feet don’t
get swollen like they did before. Her
hands are slowly regaining strength. It amazing to see this happening because
the doctors said there was no cure and it was only going to get worst. My mom
is actually improving and after every session she feels even better. Last month she we for a checkup and the
hospital and she was told that she was really good and didn’t schedule her for
another appointment until next year. Dr. Lee is great, he is doing what we
thought it was impossible; he is helping my mom battle through this horrible
disease.
I’ll try to keep this blog updated as we continue to go to
this wonderful doctor. If anybody has questions don’t hesitate to ask me. My
email is Jss_salas@hotmail.com
