I’m writing today about something that might stretch your credulity. Some people may even find this information threatening or dangerous (I’m not sure how, but some people do go there). For years, I avoided this particular procedure because I couldn’t believe that it could possibly work. Like most people who try these sorts of things, I tried it only out of desperation. But it did work! Spectacularly, as a matter of fact.

 

A little background: I had asthma as a child whenever I got too excited (e.g., at a slumber party), spent any time around cats, or when spring rolled around and all the pollen came out. I grew out of it for a while—either that, or I managed it well enough using an over-the-counter inhaler; but at any rate, it didn’t bother me for several years.

 

Then I moved out here. Over time, my spring allergies became worse and worse. They didn’t just involve asthma, either. I had terrible hay fever. And the hay fever exacerbated the asthma. Eventually, it got so scary and miserable that I started spending six weeks a year with my sweet and hospitable brother who lived on the ocean in southern California. That was not a bad solution for awhile, but then he started collecting antiques (the climate on the beach was a haven for mold) and dating a woman who owned cats, and his home became just as bad for me in terms of being able to breathe as Redding in full pollen season.

 

I managed my asthma throughout the rest of the year with conventional acupuncture, which also involved the use of herbal remedies. The practitioners I saw used homeopathic remedies as well. The conventional medical route hadn’t worked for me; I tried everything except a corticosteroid inhaler or oral steroids. I knew that both of these approaches risked significant side-effects—for example, loss of bone density and a compromised immune system—and the other pharmaceutical solutions I tried either didn’t work, stopped working after awhile, and/or had such intolerable side-effects that I couldn’t keep taking them. My alternative methods worked for years but then, for some reason, my asthma started getting worse again. Anyone who has asthma knows how painful and frightening it is not to be able to breathe. Struggling for breath sets your back and chest muscles on fire. And it really takes the fun out of life.

 

Then a friend of mine (whom I had talked into trying this particular technique, which I knew about from my reading and research) let me know that she had gone through a course of these treatments, that they had worked remarkably well, and that I was an asshole if I didn’t try them myself.

 

Well, geez, I didn’t want to be an asshole! And, as I mentioned, I was becoming desperate and frightened. So I set up an appointment for my first NAET treatment with the closest practitioner, who was in Sacramento. This was another reason, actually, that I had put off trying this; it was a major time and travel commitment.

 

NAET stands for Nambudripad Allergy Elimination Technique and it was discovered accidentally by Dr. Devi Nambudripad, an M.D. and L.Ac. who suffered from terrible allergies and asthma herself. She found that getting a sequence of acupressure points stimulated while holding an allergen clears the allergic reaction to that substance in most cases, usually permanently (this technique has now been in use for over twenty-five years). This applies to food allergies as well as environmental allergies. It’s the only treatment I know of that will make it possible for someone to eat foods they were previously allergic to (note: this is different from a situation in which the person lacks the gene or enzyme needed to digest a particular food). The theory is that this procedure reprograms the way the brain perceives the allergen, and that the brain then stops initiating the allergic sequence that involves overproduction of histamine, etc.

 

To test for allergens, the practitioner uses a technique known as muscle testing, which drives some old-school and conventional medical devotees absolutely around the bend. It appears, to me, to be a way of accessing the part of our mind that regulates our body’s homeostasis, and which, of course, would possess intimate knowledge of every single physiological fact related to our health and functioning. Techniques vary, but the most common is the one where the practitioner has you hold a vial of the substance; then they try to push your outstretched arm down while you try to resist. If you’re not allergic, they have difficulty; if you’re allergic, your arm caves in with no resistance whatsoever. The first time I had this done, it completely freaked me out. Interestingly, the environmental allergens that this technique identified in my system matched up very closely with the results of a battery of skin scratch tests I had had done in my twenties.

 

I hadn’t tested for any food allergies because I didn’t think I really had any, except for my allergy to mollusks, which produced horrible bouts of projectile vomiting. And in any case, there wasn’t much I could have done about them except avoid the food, and the conventional tests are notoriously inaccurate in both directions, giving both false negatives and false positives.

 

But it turned out that I had a number of food allergies or sensitivities, including ones to gluten, soy, alcohol, sugar, sulfites, strawberries, carrots, vanilla, etc. The first day my practitioner treated me for gluten and sugar. Then I had to stay four feet away from anything containing either of these substances for 25 hours. (I know, it sounds like voodoo, doesn’t it? But this technique falls into the category of energy medicine. Biochemically-based medical systems have difficult comprehending this approach, but biophysical effects in biological systems are well-established and I am guessing that this technique may fall into some aspect of biophysics, interwoven with perception and neurology.) I could only eat meat and eggs for 25 hours, too, during which time I realized how it was that people could lose weight on the Atkins Diet. It makes you feel sick to your stomach, and food—especially meat, dairy, and eggs—sounds revolting!

 

However. For the first time in my life, during that 25 hour period, I had no tightness in my chest and no wheezing. I felt completely and qualitatively different. It was very, very interesting. After that 25 hours, I started eating everything I usually did and the wheezy feeling returned, because I was eating foods that hadn’t been cleared yet. Little by little, I treated for all the foods that I tested allergic for. Then we moved on to grass pollen, weed pollen, dust, mold, and animal dander.

 

Combining these treatments with a breathing technique I taught myself (and which I’ll describe in my next blog post), I completely cleared up my asthma. For five years now, I haven’t used anything at all for asthma. I’ve only had a couple of asthma episodes and I was able to treat them using this breathing technique. It has been life-altering. It has been miraculous. And I really don’t think this is about a placebo effect because I went into the thing thinking it was bullshit. I was so allergic to cats that I couldn’t spend much time around people who owned them, even if there was no cat around. No way could I go to dinner or to a party at someone’s house where a cat was in residence. Now I can stay the weekend at people’s houses who own cats and I can even pet them. I don’t have to leave Redding during the spring. I still have some hay fever, but it’s not that bad. And I can always breathe. Ahhhh!

 

 

Right now, unfortunately, is not the time to get cleared for pollen allergies, since it would be impossible to avoid pollen for the required time after treatment, but food allergies are always cleared first, so you could start clearing those now, and by the time you get through those allergies, pollen season might be over and you could proceed with those for next year. NAET is a definite commitment and it’s admittedly a hassle besides, but for me, the long term freedom, peace of mind, and improved health that I’ve experienced ever since has made it well worth it. Last time I traveled out of the country, asthma was so far from my mind that I forgot to pack my emergency inhaler. But as it turns out, I didn’t need it.