Dr. Elyse Rohrer Budiash, DTCM, MSOM, Dipl. O.M., L.Ac

This Is How Acupuncture Saved Me

I became very ill my senior year in undergrad. I had a fever, nausea, and vomiting. I was so exhausted I could barely get out of bed. I saw my Primary Care Physician, an Infectious Disease Specialist, a GI, and a Neurologist. Puzzled, they ordered all the tests: blood work, MRI, CT scan, lumbar puncture, upper endoscopy, colonoscopy, and then more blood work. In between tests were misdiagnoses (including a brain tumor, which I definitely didn’t have). In the end, the only notable result was elevated liver enzymes, and so it was declared that I had a mysterious virus in my liver.

After it was determined that the only thing biomedicine could offer me was medications to alleviate symptoms, I asked my primary care doctor to help me get off the medications I was taking. She suggested I give acupuncture and herbal medicine a try. These treatments helped me to start feeling better right away. In fact, it was the only thing that ended up helping me recover from my mysterious illness, and that experience planted a seed in me.

After undergrad, I worked in social justice for a while and thought I would become a public interest lawyer. But, I just couldn’t put down the books I was reading about Traditional Chinese Medicine. Coupled with how energizing I found it to help people with their health, I thought—maybe I should make this my career!