Chapter 426 The Root of Your Illness Isn't in Your Hands 2 "Alright." Su Tang nodded. "Stretch out your right hand."
Jiang Yan almost couldn't wait and stretched out his right hand in front of Su Tang.
His palms were outstretched, and due to nervousness, a fine layer of sweat had even seeped from his palms.
Su Tang's gaze calmly fell on his hands. She didn't touch them, unlike a typical traditional Chinese medicine practitioner who would take his pulse or press his fingers.
Her gaze slowly moved up from his fingertips, across his wrists, forearms, and elbows, finally settling on his shoulders and the back of his neck.
"Besides the numbness in your fingers, have you also felt a particular heaviness in your right shoulder lately, like there's a stone pressing on it? Especially on cloudy days or at night, do you feel a soreness in the space between your shoulder blades?" Su Tang asked casually.
Jiang Yan's pupils contracted slightly.
How...how did she know?
He didn't even mention this to the army doctor! Because he thought the shoulder pain was an old problem left over from training, something every soldier had, and it shouldn't be related to the finger problem.
But now, after Su An pointed it out, he realized with a start that these two things seemed to have happened at the same time.
"Yes...yes." His voice was a little dry.
Su Tang seemed oblivious to his surprised expression and continued to ask, "When you sleep at night, do you often find one arm numb and tingling, waking up in the middle of the night because of the numbness?"
Jiang Yan's mouth opened slightly; he was too shocked to speak and could only nod subconsciously.
So accurate!
It's almost like living inside his body!
She spoke of these most private bodily sensations, sensations that even he himself had almost ignored, in a casual and understated manner.
“One last question.” Su Tang’s gaze finally shifted from his shoulder to his face, her clear eyes seeming to see through everything. “Have you been injured before? Not in the army, but even earlier. The injury is on the right side of your neck or near your collarbone.”
Jiang Yan froze completely, the color draining from his face in an instant, replaced by an unbelievable pallor.
He subconsciously raised his left hand and touched the right side of his neck.
There, hidden beneath the collar, was a faded scar, almost invisible.
It was from an accident when he was a teenager. He wasn't seriously injured at the time, and he recovered in two months. He had almost forgotten about it. For so many years, no one had ever noticed it.
How...how did she figure that out...?
If the first two questions could be explained by "meticulous observation" or "guessing," then this last question is completely beyond his comprehension. Can this really be seen simply by "observation, listening, questioning, and palpation"?
Through observation and questioning, Su Tang could roughly deduce that Jiang Yan's nerve plexus from the fifth cervical vertebra to the first thoracic vertebra had developed slight adhesions and edema due to old injuries and the pressure from long-term high-intensity training.
It was this old injury in his neck that was compressing the nerve root leading to his right arm, causing numbness in his distal fingers and soreness in his shoulder.
The root of the problem isn't in the hands, but in the neck.
"It seems I was right." Su Tang's tone remained calm.
“In our village, we call this condition ‘vine-like disease,’” she said, making up a name on the spot.
"Entanglement disease?" Jiang Yan looked blank.
“Yes. That is to say, the root of the disease is like the root of a vine, growing in one place, but the pain and numbness travel far away along the vine.” Su Tang used a very vivid analogy, “Your hand is the tip of that vine. And the root is growing on your neck.”
She raised her hand and lightly touched the right side of her neck with her finger.
“You were injured here in your early years, which damaged your tendons and bones and disrupted your blood circulation, leaving a knot. You don’t usually feel it, but the intensity of military training is high, and you always use your right shoulder to support your rifle. Over time, this knot becomes more and more congested, blocking the path to your arm. When the path is blocked, your fingers naturally become numb and weak.”
This explanation, which was half guesswork and half guesswork, mixed with traditional Chinese medicine theory and folk sayings, was like a wake-up call to Jiang Yan!
He instantly understood all the key points!
Why couldn't the military doctors detect the problem? Because they only looked at the hands.
Why is rest ineffective? Because the root cause isn't in your hand. Why is it getting worse? Because the grueling "Devil Week" training exacerbates the blockage in that "knot."
Jiang Yan asked, "Then... is there a cure for this 'entanglement disease'? Can this 'knot' of mine be untied?"
Seeing his nervous expression, Su Tang deliberately hesitated for a moment before slowly saying, "It can be solved. It's just... a bit troublesome."
"No matter how troublesome it is, I'm willing to try!" Jiang Yan immediately declared, his eyes filled with unwavering determination.
“Okay.” Su Tang nodded. “Since you trust my country tricks, I’ll give it a try. But let me make this clear first, I can only help you ‘relax your muscles and loosen the knot.’ I can’t guarantee whether it will heal or how much it will heal. And this process will be very… painful.”
"I'm not afraid of pain," Jiang Yan answered without hesitation. Compared to losing a hand and ending his entire shooting career, he could endure any pain.
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