The Last Word On Nothing

Six months ago, I did something foolish. I ran a five-mile race with little training. I figured five miles wasn’t going to kill me, and it didn’t. But after the race, I had a nagging ache in my ankle. So I took a break from running, and the ankle pain went away. I thought I was cured.

But each time I tried to be more active, the pain would return. I’d run, the ankle would hurt. I’d rest, the ankle would get better. I’d power through a tough workout at the gym, the ankle would hurt. I’d rest and it would get better. No matter how long I rested, however, the pain would always return.

A few months ago, I finally went to see a doctor. She diagnosed me with posterior tibial tendonitis — inflammation of the tendon that runs along the inside of the leg from the big toe into the calf. She prescribed physical therapy. Weeks later, I was still in pain. But because of a glitch with my insurance, I couldn’t see that doctor again. So I saw another doctor. Same diagnosis. He gave me wool pads to put in my shoes. They didn’t help either. I asked my physical therapist if I should undertake an intensive rehabilitation protocol I found by scouring PubMed. He shrugged. 

Spring came, and the days began to grow warmer. I longed to go for a leisurely run along the lake, but I didn’t dare. At the gym, I had to explain that I simply couldn’t do some of the exercises. No jumping rope. No leaping onto boxes. I told the owner about my ankle troubles. “You know this is what we do, right?” he asked incredulously. “We help people with these kinds of issues.” I like the owner and I like his wife, so I made an appointment. I assumed they would give me some sort of ankle strengthening routine to help me recover.

A week later, I showed up for my appointment. Soon I was lying on a quilt-covered massage table staring at a dangling skeleton and a wall of diplomas from The Healing Arts Institute. J–, the owner’s wife, explained that she would be doing reflexology. Practitioners of reflexology believe that different points on the feet (or hands or ears) represent different parts of the body. The thyroid, for example, is below the big toe. The lungs are in the balls of the feet.The pancreas is in the arch. The theory is that applying pressure to these points on the foot helps correct problems in the organs/bones/glands they represent.

Reflexology is mostly bullshit. And by ‘mostly’, I mean ‘all.’ It’s all bullshit. Or as retired physician Harriet Hall puts it, reflexology is “a theatrical placebo with a soupçon of relaxing massage.”

But one doesn’t book a reflexology appointment and then berate the reflexologist for practicing reflexology. That simply isn’t done. So instead I lay quietly and tried not to grimace or yelp or giggle as J– pressed her fingers deep into my feet while saying things like “your breast area feels great,” “your kidney is tense,” and “you have so many ribs out,” a phrase I find totally baffling. Out of what? I watched her vigorously knead the pituitary gland in my big toe. I let her scrape pieces of horn over my sad tendon. And then I paid for the service.

I expected to feel hoodwinked, but instead I felt . . . hopeful. Someone had listened to me. Someone had shown me compassion. Someone had offered me a path to recovery (albeit one unlikely to succeed, one for which no remotely plausible mechanistic explanation exists). Reflexology and many other forms of alternative medicine may be bunk, but they get one thing right: the experience matters.

The ankle doctors I saw didn’t do anything wrong. They offered a diagnosis. They gave me some potential remedies. But a doctor’s time is precious. I had no more than fifteen minutes with each of them. I had J–‘s undivided attention in for a full 60 minutes. That could help explain why people keep seeking out alternative medicine despite the lack of efficacy. When neither conventional medicine nor alternative medicine can solve the problem, the experience becomes almost as important as the therapy.

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Image credit: Jeremy Brooks on Flickr