Oriental Tit Tar

I've been going for tit tar treatments (Chinese physiotherapy) at Oriental Tit Tar in Sea Park to treat my busted left shoulder. They specialise in "treating bone, joint and muscle pain."

To check out their website, please click Oriental Tit Tar.

These guys are pretty good as they know their stuff. My brother sees them whenever he injures himself. I too have brought Sonny there once to treat his foot about 1-2 months ago. Sonny hurt the vein in his foot due to his non-stop jumping (sometimes from the sofa to the floor!) and his condition improved after 6-8 hours of seeing the tit tar sifu and his foot being wrapped with herbs.

Why see a tit tar and not a conventional orthopaedic? Well, to simply put, I have more faith and am more comfortable seeing the former :-) I'm 50:50 when it comes to Western treatments...

I went for 4 tit tar sessions all in all, once every alternate day (Thu-Sat-Mon-Wed). Each session would involve massage, rubbing, pressing and scrapping of my shoulder area. It would then end with the sifu wrapping herbs on my shoulder. It's to be left there overnight and removed in the morning. It smells like any typical tit tar oil and not too overwhelming.

Each session set me back between RM80-100. So the total was close to RM400. Ouch! The pain in my wallet was nearly as bad as the pain in my left shoulder!

According to the sifu, I've injured my shoulder ligament. No surprises here. I blogged about it in my earlier post...Shoulder Injury even before I started seeing them for tit tar treatments.

"Unlike bones, veins and ligaments are difficult to heal. Healing process is also subjective. If it was a bone injury, all you need to do is to adjust it back into the socket/slot and you'll be on your way to recovery. You'll need to rest for a few weeks. No weights during this period. Cardio is alright."

I thought to myself, "Crap! Just my luck! There goes my come back..."

I was also given some black tablets (Chinese herbs) to aid recovery. The instruction says to take 3 tablets twice a day after meal. A packet was good for about 3 days. They gave me a packet each on Thu (Day 1 of treatment) and Mon (Day 3 of  treatment).

"These tablets will help strengthen your veins. You'll also need to watch your diet. You can't have cold drinks and any food/drinks with cold properties. Whisky and beer are out of the question."

I protested, "No alcohol? But that's elixir of life wor! No alcohol means no life!"


Property of Mr Flabby Less
List of food and drinks to avoid. How boring! Thank god durian didn't make it to the list! :-P

Well, I guess if it's important for me to abstain from alcohol for my own good and aid recovery, I should just comply.

But what about my favourite? "Err...durian can eat ah?"

"Yes, no problem. Durian has heaty/warm properties and not cold so that's fine."

WOOHOO! I did have durian after each tit tar session :-) No excuse right since it's just a stone's throw away from SS2's durian strip? :-P

I'm still not doing weight training and my workout is limited to cardio. Depending on my form for the day, I spend about 45-60 mins on a cardio machine. Sometimes I even do some burpees but my shoulder feels tender after that so I'm cutting back on that too.

I'm no longer young so I guess recovery time is a tad longer. I plan to consume some supplements to aid recovery. Do check out my post on Supplements For Shoulder Injury.