A Patient's View

I have made several visits to the doctor’s office during the past 20 years in order to find out the cause of my occasional exhaustion and heart palpitations.  I worried that perhaps I would need a valve replacement like my father.  On one such visit the doctor told me, “There is nothing wrong with you.  Your blood tests are all negative, and your heart is normal. You do have an elevated level of the liver enzyme bilirubin – it’s called Gilbert’s Syndrome – but it’s nothing to worry about. You’re fine!” I knew that this man was highly regarded in the medical community and that he was trying to relieve my anxiety, but nevertheless, I felt like I had just received a diagnosis of hypochondria.

People who have Gilbert’s Syndrome do worry about it because sometimes they can experience deep exhaustion which can last for up to several days.   And if they don’t understand their condition they will also feel confused because they are told, “There is nothing wrong.”  I continued searching for a way to help overcome the empty-gas-tank feeling that plagued me from time to time, and this is how I ended up in Dr. Ng’s office, or “The House of Ancient Science” as I came to call it.

With Dr. Ng’s treatments and teachings my situation gradually became clear to me.  Rather than the “You’re fine” line, Dr. Ng told me I have a constitution known as “born to be weak.”  Now this might seem like bad news to some people, and of course I felt a little sad at first having always had an image of myself as someone who was physically very strong.  But this feeling was quickly replaced by a deep sense of confirmation because someone had finally told me the truth about why I feel so tired when I overdo it with too much hard work or when I wake up with a headache if I’ve eaten junk food the night before or why I have a natural aversion to drugs.