Health Blog
Written by Dr. Heo Ji-young. Each piece takes a single symptom and follows what is actually happening in the body.
What Remains After It Heals
The cast came off, but you cannot make a full fist, and the bone is said to have healed well, yet the arm feels heavy by evening — which is right? Both are. What a test measures is whether it has been fixed; what the body measures is whether it can be used the way it once was. Being told the bone has healed is the starting line for using it again, not the finish line. If the pain has moved away from the site of the injury, or you cannot bear weight on it, or it looks different in shape, checking comes first.
When Guarding Becomes the Illness
When one molar aches, you start chewing on the other side without ever deciding to. Once the ache settles, you go back to normal before you notice. But in some bodies, those few days become years. The body does its part when it uses an injured spot less and shifts the load elsewhere to protect it — but what happens when the reason to guard it is gone, yet only the manner of guarding remains? If one limb visibly thickens within a few days, or a numb area keeps spreading, checking comes first.
A Body Long Ill Recovers Long
A patient who told me it had been three years then asked, ‘So will it take three years to heal, too?’ Counted in days, that is how it sounds — but saying it has hurt for a long time also means the same thing has passed through that many times. A nerve connection strengthened by passing through many times has to pass through the opposite direction many times as well before it weakens. Direction is revealed not by the good days but by how low the bad days sink. If it only ever worsens, or wakes you at night, checking comes first.
Pain Comes From Conditions, Not Just Tissue
Some days you can put your shoes on without a thought; other days you cannot bend at the waist. Did the disc really change in those few days? If the shape looks the same as yesterday but the pain does not, what changed was not the tissue but the conditions the tissue was sitting in. Sleep, hunger, cold, and pressure all shift the threshold for pain. If the pain wakes you at night, or comes with weakness or numbness, get it checked first.
They Said the Joint Has Worn Down
“Your cartilage has worn down a lot” — so why is it that some people whose X-rays look bad feel no pain, while others whose X-rays look fine have been hurting for years? Cartilage has no pain nerves, so the tissue an X-ray measures and the tissue that generates pain are not the same. That sentence only tells you about the cartilage. If a joint swells and grows hot overnight, or chills come with it, see a doctor first.
I Ask When It Hurts
A knee that hurts only going down stairs, and a knee that hurts even lying still — both get called “my knee hurts,” so why do I look at different things next? Whether it is stiff in the morning, comes with meals, appears on touch, or shows up with a particular motion — the “when” is what divides the branches. If the pain grows worse every day and is enough to wake you at night, see a doctor and get it checked first.
Weak Strength Is Also the Body's Doing
“My thigh just melted away, I have no strength in it” — but could that really happen within days of an injury? If the muscle has not had time to shrink and yet the strength is gone, the signal to the muscle may be suppressed by the joint's own irritation (arthrogenic muscle inhibition). Willpower alone will not bring it back. If a joint swells sharply or turns hot and red right after an injury, get the joint checked first.
Tingling and Cramps Are Not Only About Muscle
Tingling, cramping — you assume it's a knotted muscle and rub it out, so why does relief only last a moment? Pain, cold, heat, and itch all travel close pathways inside the body and can swap places with one another, and the spot where tingling is felt may be where the signal arrived, not where it started. If sudden tingling appears on only one side along with slurred speech, you need to move quickly.
For Stiffness to Soften Again
Does the body being “stiff” necessarily mean something is damaged? Like a palm thickening from days of shoveling, the body reshapes whatever gets pressed, in proportion to how much it is pressed. Stiffness from reduced water content and stiffness from collagen settling into place run on different clocks — the question is which one is currently in front. If it swells and grows feverish, or keeps getting worse even with rest, get it checked first.
The Pressed Place and the Flowing Place
How much blood actually circulates is not set by the pushing force alone. It flows in proportion to the pushing pressure minus the pressure squeezing that place. This is why one spot alone is always numb and heavy while the tests come back normal.
In Photographs, the Head Is Always Tilted to One Side
When the pelvis or the shoulders are twisted, the body makes its final adjustment at the head so that the eyes stay level. But the neck is unusually densely packed with sensors that measure position, so a head held tilted can send information that disagrees with what comes from the inner ear and the eyes. The place that holds posture and the place that reads how the body feels lie closer together than one might expect.
A Calf Cramp Does Not Have Just One Cause
People say it is from not drinking enough, but studies comparing the blood of those who cramped and those who did not found no clear difference. I look at a cramp as something small happening inside a narrow compartment, and I look at three strands together — energy, pressure, and nerve.