1 week (and a bit) later

Yesterday I felt a bit crampy although I didn't have any sudden urges to go to the washroom which is what usually accompanies the cramps. I probably only went to the ol' johnson about 4 times in the entire day so to me, that would be a normal healthy day. Things weren't so solid, in otherwords, it wasn't Diarrhea, but more like a bunch of small stoolies.

Today, I also felt a few cramps, but it actually felt more like I needed to go but couldn't. It was more of the reverse of what I was experiencing before the NAET treatment. More of a constipated effect. Again, this is not characteristic of my experiences of the last few months, or rather last couple of years.

I went in for my noon session and Judy decided that I should get a boost with the same treatment as last week, with a few extra viles of pathogenic virus thrown in for good measure. She was definately pleased with my report to her and wasn't at all concerned about the cramps. A second treatment is usually required. I followed all of the guidelines last week, like no contact with my sweetheart, so I wasn't feeling like I did anything wrong.

At least today, she didn't say I had to have no kissing or sex, but Sharon is feeling ill with the flu and the NAET guide says that if I'm treated for virus mix, then I should have no contact with anyone who has influenze, or any type of virus. So no sick sex then ;)

Ok, again I was on the table and went through all of the same spinal massage while holding the vial of allergens. I was left alone in the dark with some new age music in the background to lay there and let my body react. She always asks me how I'm feeling after I've laid for a while, and I always say 'fine'. But, I do feel different things as I lay. I mild pressure in my head, or itchy eyes. I took a deep breath and noticed that I had a tight chest. I reported those things, but to me, they are common. To her, those are signs that I am reacting to the vials.

I guess that when you get used to reacting to things around you, you don't really notice them happening in a controlled environment.

The last thing she did today was to use a technique called Auricular Acupuncture. This entailed a laser on pressure points on my ear. She determined the points by using coloured lenses and taking the pulse of my thyroid. Or was it the Hypothalmus? I'll have to read some more, but I don't know what it takes to take the pulse of something that isn't my heart. I should have asked, and I will next week. I may be afraid to hear the answer though.

With this, she attached a bead to each of the 2 points on my ear using some medical adhesive. I am supposed to massage each spot for about 2 minutes, twice a day. This is apparantly a natural pain killer for my stiffness in my muscles and/or joints. I have a stiff and sore neck many days, and I walked in there that way. I walked out loose as lucy.

Day 3: now it's spooky

So for the third day in a row, I have felt perfectly normal below the belly. I haven't felt one cramp or any urgent need to go to the washroom. I'm having only about 2-4 number 2's now instead of the 12-15 visits that I was completely sick of. Because of this, I'm a little spooked (in a good way of course) that there is definately more going on in this world than we generally accept.

How can it be that my treatment consisted of my basically holding bunch of vials in my hand and a bit of accupressure and spinal stimulation? No shots, no pills, no surgery. Incidentally, a girl at work is recovering from surgery for Crohn's disease. She'll be gone from work for about 6 weeks. Could NAET have avoided her that unfortunate need for surgery? I'm beginning to believe that is true and I may be avoiding a future of bowel problems that I do not want in my life.

Unless there is any changes here-on in the poops, I am not going to bother documenting anything in regards to poops. Instead, I'll just use the word poop one more time and leave it at that. Just assume that things are good with the poops (ok 2 more times) and I'll continue with next weeks treatment for molds and yeasts.

Day 2 : Things still seem normal

I was skeptical that yesterday's complete lack of unnatural bathroom visits was the result of my first NAET session with Judy. I figured that it just might be a coincidence that my first full day of normal poops in many weeks happened to fall on the day after my treatment. Well, I can safely say that 2 days in a row of healthy and normal poops has just occurred. This has definately not happened for at least 6-8 weeks.

I know that a diarrhea diary isn't the most interesting read, but I have to keep this record since it's impossible to remember what my poopy patterns have been like over any given time period.

I made an appointment for next friday, August 26 at noon. I believe Judy will be eliminating molds (a big one for me) and yeasts. I'm not sure how that elimination will effect me, but if my current progress holds, I will ask more questions about what has brought on the positive changes.

Also, 48 hours of avoidance have passed. Sharon and I can kiss again! yaaaaay!

The Day After

Avoidance

One of the steps in treatment is avoidance. The allergen that you are treated for needs to be avoided for 25 hours, or a full day cycle in the body's biological clock. Next treatment, I am being treated for molds and yeast, so I'll not be allowed to eat any cheese or breads. As well, I'll have to avoid moldy places like damp basements.

This treatment was for naturally occurring bacteria that exists in our very bodies. How in the hell am I supposed to avoid that? Well, I can't avoid my own, but I have to avoid others' bacteria, like my sweetheart Sharon's! When I told her that we couldn't kiss, have sex, and if at all possible, not TOUCH, I thought she was going to think I was cheating on her with Judy. However, she was very understanding and even pushed for the recommended 48 hours rather than the guidelines of 25 hours. She wants to make sure I do it right. Ok, so we shouldn't sleep in the same bed either since during the night it's very easy to end up curling up together without thinking about the treatment. We will survive this!

Reaction

I can't really say if what I am experiencing today is related to my session yesterday, but I had fantastic sleep last night and from the moment I woke up, I've felt great all day. I've been to the washroom twice and both times felt very natural. For the last 2-3 weeks, I haven't had very natural bathroom visits. Most mornings I would have rushed to the bathroom about 6 times after only being up for about 3 hours. Basically, by 10:30 at work, I was getting up every half-hour with a sudden urge to poo, accompanied by cramping. It has been a very uncomfortable time.

Anyway, today is definately different. The only strange part is that I expected to feel rather badly because Judy told me that my body was likely going to react for the next couple of days to the treatment she performed to rid my body of the negative sensitivities to the natural bacteria in my bowels and throughout my body.

Unfortunately, I'm feeling fantastic ;)

My First Session

I laid on a massage table and Judy performed resistance tests on me. I held my left arm straight up and was asked to touch my thumb to my pinky finger. She held her arm behind and told me to resist her. She found that I wasn't "balanced" and she balanced my by doing some sort of chi thing. She moved her hands in a circular motion over my belly as well as my chest. Of course this part made me start to wonder what the hell I was doing there.

After she found that I was balanced, she again asked me to resist her arm, while I was holding a vile of a suspected allergen in my right hand. I could not hold back her arm with an allergen as my muscles weaken when exposed.

Next, I flipped over and she used some standard massage tools to run up and down my spine in order to trigger my brain and wake things up. I was flipped back over onto my back again and asked to hold a vile of the substance while laying there for about 10 minutes.

I repeated with a vile that contained a liquid pepper mix and eventually an entire jar of viles containing bacteria. I was also asked to hold a vile of Lime (from lime disease) as she found that I was very sensitive to that. I was now holding this jar for 20 minutes.

Judy also stimulated various acupressure points round my hand, legs and feet. Apparantly this helps clear blockages in my body's pathways and it is part of the allergy clearing process.

Treated for:

something organ related (I'll update when I find out again)
possibly peppers (I did hold a vial labelled Peppers Mix)
natural bacteria (I need more info on this as well)

The Testing

I walked into the clinic which was probably a renovated basement of the Naturopathic's own home. Of course I wondered if that meant I was walking into a half-assed operation. However, it pretty much looked like a private clinic with a waiting area and a reception desk. The books were far from what you'd find in a medical clinic. I didn't notice any 3 year old magazines with recipes ripped out or the always-put-you-to-sleep McLean's. What they had were REAL books. Books that you'd actually enjoy reading, yet they were all focused on the practice at hand. Natural medicine, fitness, diet, etc.

I spent about 20 minutes filling out a questionnaire about my health history and my current symptoms. Then I followed Judy Spence into her testing and evaluation room to go over my overall health and begin some testing.

The testing was pretty easy to go through. I had to hold onto a brass bar in my left hand while Judy poked at my acupressure points on my right hand. Basically this was around the nail of my middle finger. The machine is called a Biomeridan Electronic Stimulation Test (BEST) and it is a very interesting tool. It's wired to a Windows XP PC with some custom software to visually select the allergans from a database and sets called Biosets.

I asked many questions about the machine and I've gathered that it basically changes the voltage for each item in the database and then the operator (Judy!) applies the thingy to a pressure point on my finger. While holding the brass bar, the machine reads and sends the data in real time to the PC which visualizes the bioelectrical signals that it is picking up on a graph. Depending on whether the values fall within a certain range on the chart, will show Judy whether I am senstive to the material.

I had strong sensitivities to edible things like Peppers (which I cook with almost every day...especially the hot variety), tomatoes, wheat, yeast, mold (all kinds...even in cheese, which I eat daily of course), cranberry, many spices including those that I eat weekly in our Indian inspired dishes.

As well, there are a number of environmental that I am sensitive to. Things like car exhaust, dust mites, smog (who isn't?), Trees, chemicals in fertilizers and many other things around my living environment.

Lastly, it seems that the most critical of my sensitivities fell in the natural and biological range of irritants. I am experiencing reactions to the natural bacterias that live in my own body! As well, chemicals that are naturally produced in my brain are affecting me. Molecules that spew out of the hypothalmus, pituitary gland and other glands and organs are definately a problem for me. From the sounds of things, my body is trying to kill me.

I was happy to know that Red Wine was not a problem for me.

related links:

BioMeridian
NAET summary
NAET on About.com

I got an appointment

The reason I started this blog is so I could have a progress record of my experience with NAET. I found out about this incredibly interesting Naturopathic medicine through my friend's wife this past weekend. I was so intrigued. When she realized that my eyes lit up as she mentioned the treatment she knew that I wasn't going to call her a quack.

Basically NAET stands for Nambudripad's Allergy Elimination Techniques.

The theory is rather sound to me. Basically, people are allergic to many natural substances that we are exposed to every day in our lives. The allergies and reactions that the medical industry recognizes are very limited compared to what the NAET people look for. Sure, I'm allergic to cats and they are easy to avoid. However, I may have an allergy to Vitamin C. Vitamin C maybe triggering a reaction in my body that is causing arthritis. That is the most basic example that I can think of. Since I've only been aware of this for 3 days, I have alot to learn and I'll definately get it all in here.

NAET will basically ELIMINATE my allergies for good. I won't take shots, or any Non Steroidal Anti-Inflmmatory Drugs to control arthritis, or allergy pills to get rid of any sneezing with cats. My heartburn won't require drugs for GERD. No more purple pill!

After some research, I discovered a clinic in Ottawa and it isn't very far from where I work. The Meridian's Clinic in Ottawa seems like a great place to start this journey.

I made an appointment for tomorrow!

I will basically be going in and be evaluated for about 2 hours. They are going to decide through some technique that I have no knowledge of, what I am allergic to, and how they are going to clear me of these allergies. I can't wait. I feel like I'm going searching for UFO's. This is so new and alien to me.

After I'm evaluated, I'm going to benchmark how I'm feeling in a blogposting before I start their procedures and then I'll update as we go forward. If I think it's quackery, I'll tell ya. If I have a remarkable recovery, you'll not only hear it from me, but I'll be sure to get testimonials from everyone I know, because they know exactly what I'm going through right now, and the tic-tac sound of the pills in my pocket as I walk around.

Current pills

This weekend, I got fedup with having to take 3 different pills at different times during the day. 2 of the pills are only once-a-day pills, and the other pill I have to take 2 of, 4 TIMES-A-DAY!

That's ridiculous. I'm 34 years old, I eat very healthy foods that I cook with my girl using all fresh ingredients every day. I workout regularily so why on earth do I have to take all these pills at this young age? Will I need a gumball machine when I'm 60 to dispense my daily dose?

Here are the pills and the reasons behind them.

I've had heartburn for years which is always very uncomfortable and ensures that I'm tired for work. It doesn't let me sleep. A doctor finally said "take this, it'll change your life". Boy did it ever! My chronic heartburn (Acid Reflux/GERD) disappeared within days. If I forget to take a pill after a few days, I will be sure to feel the heartburn knocking on my esophogus. This event made me realize that regular visits to a doctor and taking the medication was very important so I decided to see a doctor whenever I noticed a change in my health.

1 Pill daily. Nexium

For the last couple of years I began getting regular lower back pain, tender sides, shoulder pain, neck pain and shortness of breath. As a runner, I noticed it on the treadmill BIG time. I couldn't breath deeply at all and that made my runs very uncomfortable. The sore back and tender sides affected my workouts as well. I'd lay on the bench and feel like I was rupturing something. At the same time, I started noticing that visits to the toilet weren't very healthy anymore. The poops tell all.

At this point, I could barely turn my neck and I wasn't sleeping well at all. I'd toss and turn throughout the night because I couldn't stay in a fixed position. In the morning, I couldn't turn around to see if cars were coming when I had to back out of the driveway. Yeah, things were getting dangerous.

My current doctor referred me to a specialist. After seeing the specialist for arthritis I was diagnosed with Ankylosing Spondylitis. That is a form of arthritis in the spine. Along with AS, I should expect other seemingly unrelated conditions to affect me as well like:

1. iritis : the inflammation of your iris - check
2. crohn's disease: inflammation of the intestines - check
3. random inflammation of various parts of the body - check

This doctor then prescribed me another pill that I would have to take daily. It started working in days as well. I could finally turn my neck and move properly. I could sleep again! However, this wasn't over as he had to send me to a Gastrointestinal guy who we'll just call GI Joe for now.

1 pill daily: Voltaren

GI Joe. I always dreaded the day that I'd have to go see one of these guys. No doctor has ever stuck anything up my bum before and I had to go in for a Colonoscopy! At least I got a shot of some killer drugs. I ended up fascinated with the procedure and talked to the 5 people in the room that were playing the video up in my colon. Yeah, it was on a screen and they were controlling everything with what looked like a controller from that Top Gun game from the late eighties.

Diagnosis: Crohn's Disease.

Treatment: 2 Pills 4 times daily.

If you're keeping track, that's 10 pills a day. If I live to be 74, I will have taken 146 000 pills in my lifetime! That's not taking into account that as I get older the Docs are going to throw more and more pills at me to eat. I can barely comprehend that number, but I do know I'd like that as a salary.