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LITERALLY…Y’all this woman set me on fire.

So I have been having knee pain for about a month now and it would go away and the minute I started to stretch or walk up and down the stairs too much at work it would start hurting all over again. So I decided to try acupuncture so I call the Chinese center where I get massages and facials to make an appointment. The doctor does acupuncture along with a smoke therapy where they use this big joint to heat the needles while they are in my knee. Less than a week later my knee is hurting again just from regular every day movement and so I make another appointment. This time the doctor says she wants to do heat therapy. Now I have not had heat therapy before but I assumed it involved something like hot stone massage. Boy was I wrong.

Heat therapy is when they cover you in wet towels spread over your affected area and then pour a liquid solution on top of the affected spot and they use a lighter to….SET YOU ON FIRE. I was laying there on my phone as she was setting up and when I looked down and saw the fire I calmly put my phone down and said “you set me on fire, I didn’t expect that at all”🤦🏾‍♀️. She calmly did this to both knees several times explaining that there was a blockage in my knee that she thinks occurred because I caught a cold in my knee. Who knew? I know that I have been complaining about the cold here in Cairo but it never occurred to me that I could catch a cold in my knee. After setting me on fire repeatedly (saying this will never get old) then she would cover the fire with another wet towel and repeat…and this shit burned. She explained that the burning meant the blockage has not opened up and she needs to keep setting me on fire until it subsides. Y’all I was trying to be still because it’s fire on the towel that is covering my knees and hmmmm well you know anything can happen.

All in all this went on for about 30 minutes and then she put plastic bags over my knees and told me to cover up with long pants when I get home and not remove the plastic for 3 hours and not to shower tonight because I need to keep my body warm. So I took a taxi home, put on my pajamas pants and I am here roasting bwahaa 🤣I couldn’t resist. Now I have done some unique Chinese medicine treatments while I was in Jamaica but I think this heat therapy is the most interesting by far. Now that I have tried heat therapy if my knee is still hurting I will go back and do another treatment but this time I will be prepared to be set on fire 🤨I can’t make this shit up #myinterestinglife #BlackExpat #Cairolife