Dr. Hao Day 1

Preliminary observations suggest that scalp acupuncture will produce some positive results for our stroke survivor.

Our first appointment was scheduled for Monday March 20 at 9:15 AM, so of course we arrived 30 minutes early. Dr. Hao's office didn't ask for any information in advance; his plan of action is based on the preliminary interview and assessment. He spent about 30 minutes asking questions and having Daddy move to determine what parts of his brain were affected by the stroke. He concluded that the biggest obstacle would be muscle atrophy (funny that it wasn't his brain's inability to move his body parts in the first place!), that his cognition/understanding is good, and that he has a harder time with numbers than words.

To give us a baseline, he had Daddy try several times to say his birth date, and count up and down from ten and took a lot of video. Then he mapped Daddy's head to identify needling targets (i.e., the areas of the brain that control swallowing, speaking, walking, etc.), and started sticking (note: hyperlinks are to videos that are too big to upload to the blog).

Daddy had a lot of tingling, his eyes were wide open most of the time, but no pain that we could tell.

Every five minutes or so Dr. Hao would spin the needles to create some friction (scalp acupuncturists with less experience would hook the needles up to an electric current instead), and have Daddy work on a few things to see if any connections were being made. There were several positive observations:

1. He walked by lifting his knees instead of swinging his hips to get the leg around. We definitely saw a gait change, and mom said several times she hadn't seen him bend his right knee to walk since his stroke.
2. His right arm was less tight, more relaxed, and he could lift it with less effort and higher (just above the head where he usually maxes out around the nose).
3. By the time we left he'd successfully recited his birth date (month, day and year) a few times, something he wasn't able to get out before the needling. He was also able to count up and down from ten without trouble (we had to prompt him before several times and he'd skipped a few numbers).
4. About three minutes after the needles went in, Daddy started moving his mouth around like something was bugging him and pulled out a pill that was stuck in his cheek (mom had given him his meds about an hour before). It could have been a coincidence but we're wondering if he didn't get some feeling back in his face.

Each observation by itself wouldn't have been noteworthy, but seeing them together suggest we made some progress. There were a few more things in the afternoon I haven't seen or heard from him since the stroke (though it could be that I was being acutely aware!):

• Twice he used small, 2-4 word phrases to communicate. I can't remember him ever speaking more than one word at a time unprompted
• He self-corrected his mispronunciation of a word
• I quizzed him on lists of family names (name your daughters, grand kids, son-in-laws, siblings, etc.), out of 15 names he had trouble with two (I won't tell you whose names but it wasn't mine!)

The jury is still out but mom and I were happy to see ANY improvement; the day exceeded my personal expectation. If we have similar results for appointments 2-4, that will certainly be something.

Thanks for the continued positive thoughts and prayers. No. 2 has taken over and will accompany mom and dad the rest of the week, you'll likely be hearing from her next!

-#1