Dr. Way Yin Pain Specialist

6-23-2011

His office staff was exceedingly pleasant and professional. I enjoyed a cordial talk with the friend of a couple who were in to see the doc. I let them go ahead of me as the poor gentleman could not sit down at all.

Sara the nurse was one of the kindest most present people I have met. She asked such things as did I mind the lights on and was I claustrophobic when she closed the door. And I thought Wow, someone, maybe the only one I have ever met, who understands.

She has MS and is disabled now, she says. But she loves her work and used to be an ICU nurse and so Dr. Yin has in her sometimes. She was wonderful. And she recommended her own neurologist in Seattle, so I am also pursuing being seen there at the Headache Clinic and MS specialists at UW.

I was not feeling well and my bp was 155/111

Dr. Way Yin was fascinating. Confident, calm, well spoken. A showman also. The funniest thing was that I had the clear sense that he was a powerful being, and I don't mean a doctor. I mean an element, or a shaman. Like he contained sunshine, something old, fiery, solar.

It was all Very Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. As he talked to me I could see him, and what I saw was some being who was standing behind a very clever facade of a doctor, a tall handsome Asian doctor. But it was like this being was holding Dr. Way Yin up in front of him, and that he had come here and assumed this shield, this costume, as the best way to help people.

Yes, I know I sound crazy.

Dr. Yin is spoken of highly.

I am fascinated that he thinks alot of my head pain may come from my neck.
You know, I think he may be right.

I leave there glad there are options that might bring me relief.
Though I think getting injections into one's facet joints sounds so Frankensteinish.
And when I read the literature about the prep, where someone has to drive you, and you go in and are given an iv, and then the procedure, and this process of trial and error perhaps over many sessions, then I think Oh Why is this my life?
I am so weary.

But of course I am grateful I have gotten to see him. Because if anyone is going to inject my head and spine with needles, "Better you do it than I do it" I told him, explaining I have at times considered self medicating with an ice pick.

And I actually appreciate that he breaks down the probablities in a very basic scientific way. He says it is likely I have cervicogenic headaches. That he would begin by doing joint blocks. If that did not help he would consider that it might be the discs. And if not the discs then it was probably the nerves.


A few days after I see him his office calls and tells me he wants an upper cervical spine MRI. I agree it is a good idea.