This post was submitted by a long time patient who prefers to remain anonymous.

I recently had my first experience of combining Eastern and Western medical treatment, and it taught me a great deal. In June and July, I began having steady waves of abdominal pain; not terrible pain but enough to curtail my exercise and eliminate my walks with friends. Daily, the discomfort vacillated between better and worse but never subsided. It felt like a horrible UTI. This illness went on through August, September and October. At some point, I spoke to my ob/gyn and went on antibiotics. I also eliminated caffeine, coffee, and alcohol and upped cranberry everything.

Jenny treated me with acupuncture and examined my tongue, asked some specific questions, and took my pulse. Based on that information, she suggested certain herbs. The pain lessened but did not disappear. At the end of October when I was in California on business, the pain became terrible. I called Jenny who suggested some herbs that gave me enough relief to get on the plane. I also called my ob/gyn doctor who again prescribed antibiotics over the phone. I picked them up the next day and took them. They did not work, and I went in for an appointment. The doctor found nothing wrong. I continued with the herbs and they helped but I wasn’t feeling quite right. The doctor’s lab found some blood in my urine and he suggested a urologist. At this point, the pain was intermittently bad.

The appointment with the urologist took 2 ½ weeks to get. During that time, I continued to see Jenny for treatment, kept taking the Chinese herbs and the pain remained manageable. The urologist performed tests, told me that my bladder was normal, gave me meds for an over active bladder and off handedly said that I could get a hysterectomy if it persisted. This scared me. I called my ob/gyn and he brought me in for an ultrasound. The ultrasound was normal. By then, it was November and the pain was managed only by the herbs that Jenny suggested. The other doctors passed me along.

Next, I went to my internist who found nothing wrong. Finally we decided that a CT scan was in order. I got the results on December 31 – this was a long haul – and there were kidney stones in my kidney, bladder and ureter. They suggested some drastic treatments. Jenny did some research and found a special kidney stone formula that really worked. My decision? Stick with the herbs that are amazing and return for another CT scan in 6 months to see if the stones have dissolved. I have had NO pain since late December. If I had not combined TCM treatments with regular medicine, I would have been in the ER several times, the 3 pretty bad months would have been 3 really bad months, and I would have NO relief.

Thank you Jenny!