Before, I talk about the Japanese language course, which I am offering, let me briefly introduce myself and my situation.
About Me
I am Tilak Bhattacharjee. I am a cervical dystonia patient and would like to share my story about my journey of this condition till now. Cervical dystonia is a neurological motor disorder that is characterized by involuntary and uncontrollable muscle spasms, contractions, tension, strain, and tremors observed mainly at neck. It affects your day-to-day activities and restricts your ability to work. It belongs to class of movement disorders like Parkinson’s disease and presently has no permanent cure and can only be managed by physical therapy, exercises, yoga and Botox injections to some extent.
I had a right elbow fracture (surgery had to be done and titanium plates were inserted) in the year 2013, but till that time there were no symptoms of dystonia.In 2014, the titanium plates were removed from the elbow. Subsequently, I started getting symptoms such as right arm weakness, numbness in right hand fingers, right side jaw pain while biting something hard and right ear pain. In May 2015, the first cervical dystonia like symptoms started with strong neck pulling sensation accompanied by tremors from my right side, when I was doing post-doctoral research job in materials science at Kyoto university. At that time doctors in Japan said I should take a break from work for some time. So, I came to India for few weeks that time (May 2015 andafter feeling little better I went back to continue my research job. After that although I felt something is not right with my health as I used to get the occasional dystonia symptoms, but I thought as long as I can continue my work there should be no problem. But everything changed in August 2017 when the neck spasms, pulling sensation, tremors from the right side became more severe and made me unable to work. Doctors in Japan as well as India did MRI and X ray, they said there is minor compression in C4-C5 area and straight neck and termed by condition as cervical spondylosis. Blood test also revealed higher value of liver enzyme namely SGOT, SGPT. I took treatment such as physiotherapy which included ultrasound therapy, manual therapy for around 1 year. But none of the therapies showed significant improvement and finally in June 2018 it got further worse when my neck pulling was so severe that the head tilted backwards making walking, sitting and eating difficult. After a long struggle in July 2018, three years after the symptoms started, I was diagnosed with cervical dystonia with retrocollis by neurologists and they gave Botox injections in the neck. Although it brought the neck position little downward but making neck in correct posture and the other problems such as neck pain, muscle spasms, difficulty in walking, sitting, eating were still present. As I was unable to continue my job I returned to India after that.
From August 2018 I tried homeopathy, ayurveda, acupressure therapy in India but it did not provide significant relief. Again, in May 2019 the pain became severe so allopathic doctors suggested liver biopsy to know whether Wilson disease (Copper deposition in liver/ brain causing dystonia like symptoms) is there or not but the biopsy report came negative. So finally, they suggested deep brain stimulation surgery for my dystonia. Since they were not sure that it would cure my condition even after surgery I went to a specialist in South Korea in October 2019. You can see my initial treatment video in this link treatment video link (My treatment part starts from 2:39 seconds in this video). Although it did help me to recover by 30-40%, but due to pandemic as well as cost and feedback from other patients about reoccurrence of dystonia symptoms once they stopped the treatment made me decide it that would be impossible for me continue that treatment given the uncertainty of duration of treatment it would require and the huge cost required for each visit. Till now, through the help of family and friends support I am able to take physical therapy, acupuncture and yoga treatmentsto manage the involuntary spasms although fluctuations are still there.
Professional Journey
I completed my Bachelor of Technology (B. Tech) degree in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, India in 2009 and received gold medal for getting the highest cumulative grade point average (CGPA) in B. Tech. I pursued my masters and doctoral degree in Materials Science and Engineering from University of Tsukuba during 2009-2014 under the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) graduate assistantship scholarship given by NIMS, Tsukuba, Japan. During this period, I worked on the development of precipitation hardenable wrought magnesium alloys and its characterization using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and 3D- atom probe tomography (APT). Then I worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Kyoto University, Japan. During post-doctoral research I worked mainly on high entropy alloys and nanostructure characterization of various alloys such as Steel, Al, Mg, Ti alloys using TEM and 3D-atom probe tomography (APT). I received the 2015 TMS LIGHT METALS DIVISION MAGNESIUM BEST PAPER – FUNDAMENTAL RESEARCH AWARD for one of my doctoral degree works. My published research papers can be found in the following google scholar link https://scholar.google.co.in/citations?user=aoFuLGcAAAAJ&hl=en click here . During my stay in Japan from 2009-2018, I was able to learn the beautiful Japanese language and successfully passed the JLPT (Japanese language proficiency test) N1 level which is the highest level.
But due to cervical dystonia, Iam not able to continue my job since 2018 due to the involuntary spasms in neck. Doctors have advised to a less stressful and do something which will be less strain to the neck and body.
So, in order to do something for income and continue my passion for Japanese language, I have started a YouTube channel Nihongo Gyan –https://youtube.com/@nihongogyan. (Introduction of channel link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl7WdTUqfyw) and also interested in teaching Japanese online to interested candidates (once a week, 500 Rs per class, 30 to 40 min duration per class. Classes via zoom)
Please support me in my journey by supporting the channel and learning Japanese online via zoom.
Any other type of support/collaboration is also welcome. One can contact me through my YouTube channel or monomousumi contact.
Thank you.
Tilak
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