Traditional Method against Chinese ‘Snake’ (Herpes Zoster) Virus

At around 9am, Cath called, advising me to go and find a Chinese Pharmacy around Penang and get some traditional Chinese medicine for the Snake Virus (Herpes Zoster). So I went searching for one …7 hours later, and found one at around sunshine area.

 

The Chinese Pharmacist told me to wait for 2 hours because it need to be made fresh. Wow! Freshly made medicine for me! How cool was that! It was like you were in a restaurant and ordered a fish and then the cook went to the river to catch one for you.

 

After 2 hours, I picked up my medicine.

 

The one on the right was the medicine in powdered form, costing me RM20; whereas the one on the left was liquor, for me to drink and forget the pain. Okay, I was kidding on the drinking part. I was supposed to mix the liquor with the powder and then apply on the skin. Simple, right? But look at the alcohol level – 40%! 

I couldn’t imagine the pain that I would be experiencing so I went to ask my diet consultant, Cath straight.

 

Cath had been my diet consultant since I got contracted with this virus. Her advice was according to traditional Chinese belief (her mum). So, I should stay away from all meat, egg, bean (no more coffee for me), seafood, beer, and advisable no milk. So I ended up with just bread and butter for breakfast, lunch and dinner! Damn 'snake'!

 

Since I felt like I was like a sushi dipping into soy sauce mixed with wasabi, I used a Sushi King saucer to contain the mixed the liquor and powder.

 I then applied the paste on the infected area. The feeling? The alcohol seemed like eating my skin, inflicting extra pain on the area. Almost unbearable for me!

 

I had difficulty applying the paste on my back, so my back ended up all dark red in color!

 

When the paste dried up, I received another advice from Cath. She suddenly transformed into Chinese Custom Advisor, advising on forbidden rule (‘pantang larang’):