Traditional Chinese Medicine

I got sick 2 weeks ago, the same old virus that attacked my gut (made me puke) and gave me flu-like symptoms (cough, cold, sore throat). No fever. I went to the Western doctor (aka GP) to get medication to stop my nausea, vomiting and what-not. It worked as long as eradicating my symptoms went....but a week later, my dry scratchy cough was still bothering me. So I went to the Chinese sinseh (traditional chinese medicine practitioner). The first time, I took the bottled medicine (pre-cooked) which brought ALL the worst symptoms back - day one was my nose dripping non-stop; day two my whole body started to ache; day three i started coughing non-stop, the phlegm that was congealed in my lungs started coming unglued. Completely disgusting.

Second visit to sinseh led me to the home-cooked prescription. I was to boil the entire prescription and drink it religiously. The medicine consists of a ton of leaves, roots, seeds and things I cannot even recognise much less spell. I soaked this for half an hour in water and brought it to a boil. After simmering for 15 minutes, I strained the liquid from the gunk.

Absolutely disgusting and smells as bad as it looks.

But $58 and 4 days of drinking this later, I am glad to say I feel a lot better. All symptoms gone except the putrid phlegm trying to make its way out of me.