Doctors in South Korea were left stunned when a routine medical examination uncovered something highly unusual inside the knees of a 65-year-old woman. She had been suffering from severe, persistent joint pain, and her condition prompted specialists to order an X-ray. What the images revealed was extraordinary: hundreds of tiny gold needles embedded deep within the tissue around her knees.
The woman had been battling osteoarthritis, a chronic degenerative disease that slowly destroys cartilage and bone inside the joints. For years she endured swelling, stiffness, and the kind of pain that makes everyday activities—walking, bending, climbing stairs—feel like insurmountable challenges. Like many patients, she initially relied on traditional treatments such as prescription painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs. But while those medications sometimes brought temporary relief, they also led to stomach issues and other side effects that left her searching for an alternative solution.