Four Seasons Before Lunch Gauteng (Pretoria)

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 I have lived in Pretoria for half my life, but even at almost 50, l still am not ready for mornings like this . I step out of  home in the morning at 7 a.m., greeted by a warm, gentle breeze and sunshine so golden it felt like summer had arrived overnight. The sky was clear; the jacaranda trees glowed purple; the air smelled of warmth and possibility. “Perfect day,” l muttered, locking his door. By the time l drive out—five minutes later—the sky starts to be darkened. A cold wind came crawling in from nowhere, sweeping dust across the pavement. The temperature dropped so suddenly that  l have  to switch the heater for warmth. Laughing. “Ah, Pretoria… you never disappoint.” Halfway to the office, the heavens opened. Not soft rain— a storm . Sheets of water hammered the road, street gutters overflowed instantly, and distant thunder rolled like a grumpy giant waking up too early. People scattered, hiding under bus shelters already too full.  “Ten minutes ago...
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X-Ray Reveals Hundreds of Gold Needles in Woman's Knees

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Acupuncture needles were left in this woman's knee after treatment. 


When doctors examined an X-ray image of the knees of a woman experiencing severe joint pain, they found a gold mine: hundreds of tiny gold acupuncture needles left in her tissue.
The 65-year-old South Korean woman had previously been diagnosed with osteoarthritis, a condition in which the cartilage and bones within the joints degrade, causing pain and stiffness. But when pain relievers and anti-inflammatory drugs didn't alleviate the pain in her knees and only caused stomach discomfort, she had turned to acupuncture, the doctors wrote last week in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Acupuncture is an alternative medical practice that uses needles to purportedly stimulate certain points on the body, to alleviate pain or to treat various diseases.
In the woman's acupuncture treatment, the needles, which were presumably made of gold, were intentionally left in her tissue for continued stimulation, according to the report. [14 Oddest Medical Case Reports]
However, leaving the needles, or any objects, in the body may not be such a good idea, said Dr. Ali Guermazi, a professor of radiology at Boston University, who wasn't involved with the case. Foreign objects left inside the body can lead to inflammation, abscesses and infection.
It could also make it hard for a doctor to read an X-ray. "The needles may obscure some of the anatomy," Guermazi said. [See Image]
"The human body wants to get rid of the foreign object," Guermazi said. "It starts with some mechanism of defense, for example inflammation and forming [fibrous tissue] around the object."
Needles left in the body can cause other challenges, too. "The patient can't go into an MRI because needles left in the body may move, and damage an artery," Guermazi said.
Little evidence supports the idea that treating medical conditions with acupuncture actually works. However, the practice is widely used as a treatment for painful joints, and the insertion of pieces of sterile gold threads around the joint is a common treatment for arthritis in Asian countries, according to the new report.
In the United States, an estimated 3.1 million U.S. adults and 150,000 children were treated with acupuncture in 2007, according to a survey by the U.S. National Institutes of Health's National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

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