When my son was 6, I started to ask myself this question: do I want him to be a slave to a chronic, life-long condition?
Michael’s one diagnosis of gluten allergy at age 11 months had ballooned to multiple allergies to foods, pollens and pets. His occasional barky cough had become a permanent feature during the spring, summer and early fall, as his airways were constantly irritated. Eating out was hazardous, because he was now allergic to gluten, dairy and soy. A hidden something could mean a round of hives. We couldn’t visit friends with pets, without filling him full of antihistamines first, or battling days of reaction afterwards. And, I now had a second child who at 18 months showed signs of food problems too.
I wanted something better for my son than life in a “bubble”, spent avoiding his allergens. I wanted my daughter to dodge the allergy treadmill completely. So I started to research - and found NAET.
NAET stands for Nambudripad’s Allergy Elimination Treatment. It was developed by Dr Devi S. Nambudripad, an MD who is also trained in acupuncture and chiropractic. NAET assumes the body is an energy system - much as acupuncture does - but there are no needles involved. I’d used acupuncture myself to address chronic menstrual problems - and it had worked like a charm, despite the fact that all my regular MD could offer was birth control pills. So NAET seemed a reasonable experiment.
Many writers on the internet - especially those who think that the only “true” medicine is western medicine - dismiss NAET as quackery without ever having taken a treatment. On the other hand, my gold standard for any medical care, whether alternative or conventional, is whether or not I get results. It’s one of the reasons that I take herbs and homeopathics for my health: I’ve found that they work. I’m also willing to give a treatment time to prove itself. Some alternative medicine works like a charm - but you have to wait a bit longer. So, after assuring myself that NAET was not painful or dangerous in any way to my child, I decided that we would try it - and see what happened.
I booked an appointment for myself and both my kids with Scott Clack N.D., a naturopathic doctor with a good reputation, who was practicing in our area. I decided we’d take a minimum of 4-6 treatments and then we’d evaluate.
Of course, the first meeting is not a treatment. The naturopath needed to take a history and understand what was going on with myself and the kids. He also did some non-invasive allergy testing. Then, we got to the treatments.
The worst allergens were tackled first. For Michael, it was gluten. In fact, the whole family got treated for gluten.
After the treatment, you stay away from the treatment substance for 24 hours. Then, you are supposed to reintroduce it, and verify that the treatment worked. If it doesn’t work the first time, a second treatment may be required.
We had avoided gluten for so long, I just couldn’t bring myself to feed it to us! I went to our second visit sheepishly reporting that I didn’t know if the treatment worked. Dr Clack assured me I could try out gluten at any time, and we had our second treatment. This time, it was for dairy.
After our second treatment, I finally decided I’d let the kids and I have something that had been off limits for years - a nice piece of organic wheat toast with butter and jam (which we had in the house for my husband to eat). We added this to our breakfast. Even the kids were skeptical, but they ate it. Then I held my breath.
My son had always broken out in distinctive hives from gluten. He’d get them around his mouth in particular - although they could pop up anywhere. For the rest of the day, I waited for the hives to show up.
Nothing.
I checked him after lunch. Nothing. I checked him before supper, even making him strip off his shirt, just to be sure. Nothing.
Because gluten had always been such a big deal, I still couldn’t believe he didn’t have a hive. I made him strip off his pj’s the next morning before he got dressed and checked him from head to toe.
Nothing.
We proceeded to be treated for all our food allergies and intolerances over the next year and a half. NAET has worked flawlessly for food-related issues, whether a “true” allergy or not. I recently had a blood test for allergies, just to be sure. I was tested for a set of the most common food allergies including wheat and dairy: I was negative to everything.
We still don’t eat some foods very often - I discussed it with our ND and decided that if we’d had an allergy once, we’d treat that food with some caution. So, wheat or gluten may be in our meals once a week or so - and the same for dairy. But at least we can eat it and not worry.
Michael has also been treated for environmental allergies. These allergies are not gone yet - but are markedly better. He had treatments all through last summer. We still had to use some antihistamine during that time - but nothing compared to the previous summer where antihistamines were almost a food group. Michael is 8 now - with less allergies than he had just 2 years ago and able to attend another child’s birthday party without fear.
Since we have his environmental allergies left to deal with, our journey is not over yet. We’ll be sharing what works along the way.
