Life in China 2016: A Picture A Day, October 14 – I think I’ve said before that I really like many of the Traditional Chinese Medicine products… it’s basically natural medicine, which I’m all for. (Yes, I do know there are needs for modern Western medicine too!) Anyhow, I unfortunately have trouble with my knees, but for years now I have used these Chinese medicine patches or “plasters.” When I know I need to climb (like when we visited the rice terraces!), using these does wonders! I’ve been having more problems with arthritis in my thumb joints lately, so today I went to see the local pharmacist. I hadn’t realized that I could buy these pain patches in very small size! The pharmacist not only showed me what I needed, he proceeded to put the patches on my thumbs and tape them down good so they would stay! (I was kind of sweaty :-( we had been walking and it is still in the upper 80’s here) What service :-) So, if you have aches or pains, I highly recommend these! There are different types of the “tong” (pain) “gao” (paste/plaster) patches. They come stuck to both sides of a paper, and you have to be careful peeling them off so they don’t stick to themselves (or you won’t get them undone!). If you have really sensitive skin, you might have problems, and they have a pretty strong herbal medicine smell for the first couple hours. My favorite kind for my knees are the green package, the blue package are the little ones on my thumbs, and the big package are for your back. You can buy these online in the USA, but they are about 10 times the cost of in China! If any US friends want to try them, let me know and I can bring some home in November! Here’s an article with a little more info: http://www.theworldofchinese.com/2013/10/time-to-get-patched-up/