'Piak'???

Poor Alfee! He came home yesterday from school with a slight fever, then it broke into angry looking rash. By night, his palms and soles were covered with red spots. So we sent him to the GP and she confirmed it's HFMD, even though there's no blisters or ulcers.

Today, his rashes are even more extensive. He itches big time and his temperature fluctuates around 38 degrees. I took him to see TCM Dr Wong and she said his body is too heaty and it's a form of 'piak'. What's that in western medicine? When we were young, our parents talked about 'chuk piak', 'jiak muay', 'zheng dao' (chicken pox) and 'sair zua' (shingles). We never quite knew what's 'piak' though.

In the evening, CK took him to another GP for a second opinion. Apparently he hasn't got hfmd. The doctor suspected it's a food allergy because the symptoms are inconsistent, sharing traits of different kind of rashes. I did introduce a new kind of probiotics 2 mornings ago so it could be me.

Ck and I have very different views about our health and the treatments we should seek. He wants me to ditch the tcm and just take the antihistamine. I want to follow my tcm doctor's instruction and 调 his body. No matter what, he will never believe those supplements I have been giving the kids or tcm work. And if the new probiotics is the root cause, I think I can forget about ever convincing him. It's tough to get along when we don't agree on many things.