Following my initial experience in Santa Fe with Tibetan and Chinese traditional medicine, I began working with Tenzin Leksang, a fine Tibetan traditional medicine doctor (amchi) who lives in Lafayette, Colorado. For the first few years we met in the Boulder, Colorado home of his interpreter. His English has become good and we now communicate by text messages and I meet with him as necessary at his home.
Amchi Leksang was trained at the His Holiness the Dalai Lama's facilities in Dharamshala, India and was apprenticed to his uncle Tenzin Choedrak, the Dalai Lama's long time personal physician until his uncle’s death. Because of Amchi’s training and because his medicines come from the Dalai Lama’s Dharamshala pharmacy, I have confidence in his ability to assist in the diagnosis and treatment of several of my difficult health concerns. Amchi has been a doctor on my medical team since 2009.
At my first appointment with Amchi Leksang, following his detailed reading of the pulse of both of my wrists he told me how each of my major organs were doing and noted that my digestion was not functioning well. I told him that I wasn’t aware of a problem with digestion. He suggested that I not eat raw vegetables, garlic, caffeine and that I drink only hot or warm drinks, including in the summer. A number of years later a medical doctor diagnosed me with a SIBO (small intestine bacterial over-growth) problem. Amchi Leksang had spotted the problem years before anyone else.
Since 2009, I have take Tibetan herbal medicine daily that Amchi Leksang has provided me from the Dalai Lama’s pharmacy in Dharamshala. I noticed immediately his medicine greatly improved my long term problem with sinus infections and migraine headaches. There is no way to know for sure the impact that it has had to do with the remarkably slow progression of my ALS symptoms, but I believe that it has a significant positive impact.
During one of my most memorable appointments with Amchi Leksang, I decided to have him use golden needle therapy. It is believed by some that this therapy affects the balance of your energy meridians and thereby helps regulate the function of your corresponding organs.
It’s a scary procedure involving searing your skin on energy meridian points with a hot metal rod. I think the tip is solid gold. He applied the red hot metal to four spots on my neck and shoulders. Since I have a low tolerance for pain, I thought I would yell and scream for him to stop. Instead I felt very little discomfort. There are indeed mysteries in life. At the time, I didn’t feel any changes in my ALS symptoms. But who is to say? It was a good experience and added to my already close connection with my Tibetan doctor.
During a 2018 trip to India and Nepal, my wife Betty had the rare privilege of a personal conversation with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in which she was able to thank him for my medicine from his pharmacy that was helping me deal with ALS. He responded with an accompanying warm smile and touch that “The medicine will not cure the disease, but it will make your body healthy”. That certainly has been my experience.
My approach to health and wellness is holistic and combines both western and eastern medical traditions. I am a firm believer in alternative and complementary approaches to medicine especially for difficult chronic conditions. In my experience modern allopathic medical treatment is often only part of the answer.
When Betty and I visited Bhutan, I ran out of my Tibetan herbal medicine. Our Bhutanese guide had his doctor write a prescription that I got filled at a typical Bhutanese integrated pharmacy where I could get traditional herbal medicine, antibiotics and many other western pharmaceutical drugs. It is my hope that someday we will have holistic pharmacies like these in the United States.
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