As we exist in this physical world, we believe that symptoms like stomach cramps, irritable bowels, frequent bouts of loss of energy, anxiety and brain fog must have a physical source. This was certainly what I believed since I had noticed how I reacted to allergens like dust and animal dander. I had been conditioned to avoid my known allergens since an early age.

As I matured, I found I suffered undesirable symptoms after eating certain foods. My mother couldn’t tolerate shellfish, and I found they did not agree with me as well. So whenever I experienced some physical symptoms after a particular food, I would add this to my ever-growing list of things to avoid.

Sometime the symptomatic response was not immediate or took time to reveal itself, often as some new-to-me symptom, making it hard to be sure exactly whether this was an allergy/sensitivity or it was something else going on in my life. This uncertainty made me unsure of myself within the world. Add to this my mother was dying of melanoma and I had become phobic about sun exposure. With all this and additional stresses within family life and career, I found myself becoming more off-balance and having trouble finding any peace or joy. And this negatively affected my wife, kids, as well as my ability to work.

Instead of living in fear and enforced avoidance, I sought out something that would allow me to be less reactive. I had been using frequent acupuncture to rebalance my body but this never dealt with the root cause. I came across discussions about NAET (Nambudripad Allergy Elimination Technique) that intrigued me so I sought out a practitioner in an easily accessible office. The logic behind NAET made sense to me. A session began with selection of the affecting substance that is to be worked on. There is a standard set for the first few sessions, after which, the choice is made through muscle testing. The practitioner puts a glass tube with a sample of the target substance in the client’s hand. They then quiesce the nervous system through a chiropractic technique of physically vibrationally stimulating all the nerves along the spine following which they apply acupuncture or acupressure while the client relaxes for 20 minutes. All this is to tell the body that it need not react to the sample; all is well.

The sessions offered me hope, however, after the first set of basic clearings, my practitioner advised me that my sensitivities were too complex for him. He directed me towards homeopathy which I tried with no real success; I neither believed it would help nor connected well with the practitioner. Their assessment was that my condition and symptoms were simply due to inherited low self esteem. This may have been true but my ongoing work with the allergy doctor indicated to me that I had more complexity to my condition.

I did more research and found someone had enhanced NAET with the addition of body fluids along with the targets for clearing since there may be ongoing reactions to whatever is within our bodies. This began a turbulent and ultimately successful set of experiences with a BioSET practitioner. In this I was introduced to a variety of treatments in addition to BioSET since the practitioner themselves had symptoms similar to my own and they worked with me to try and improve my condition. One memorable treatment was to clear my sensitivity to my own adrenaline.

I suspect that since I had been living for so long in a state of flight-or-fight, I reacted strongly whenever I felt any surge in my adrenaline. This particular session ran longer than 20 minutes and I could feel so much going on within my chest, like there was something burning up and disintegrating inside me. It was quite a release. But after the many sessions over too many months, I didn’t feel I had improved that much and had experienced several exceptionally strong panic attacks. And I had spent a lot of money.

Since this practitioner had similar issues, they directed me to an MD that had been helping them. Once I finally got into this clinic that specialized in allergies/sensitivities, I was tested for a variety of issues including toxicity due to heavy metals, problems with methylation, and SPECT scanning to identify my loss of glutathione throughout my brain. The doctor suspected I had Lyme disease which, at the time, was hard to test for and was not formally recognized in Canada. As a first step I was put on a strong anti-fungal which elicited a huge, traumatic Herxeimer reaction throughout my chest during which I thought I was dying. I learned I was so sensitive that I had to start new treatments at much lower dose than suggested! And over time, the treatments seemed to help me.

Another treatment involved using a nebulizer to inhale a vaporized mixture of liquid glutathione and B-12 prescriptions. I still can feel the drama I went through doing these treatments twice a day and feeling so drained of energy and isolated by my health issues from my growing family. I would watch TV shows while spending about a half hour on the nebulizer. The lungs store emotions and trauma and I certainly went through dramatic lows, heavy tearful episodes, especially as I watched “Touched by an Angel”. But I began to feel better.

There was one early treatment which I never felt worked for me. This was PNP (Provocation Neutralization Protocol). I did watch how another client with strong allergic reaction to strawberries could be provoked into visible body rash with a diluted solution with strawberry essence then have the rash cleared when the neutralizing dilution was tested. But for me, with my particular sensitivities, I could not identify a dilution that cleared me; I just felt much worse the day later.

Key to the treatment was mega dosing of minerals and vitamins since my gut had stopped absorbing nutrients when I was at my worst. I can connect still with the jolt of fear I felt as I stepped on the weigh scale and found my weight had dropped. I was afraid I would waste away. In fact, my family feared I had AIDS. Certainly, they thought I was not right in my mind or at least could not understand what I was going through. I couldn’t blame them since I was in no way balanced or on stable emotional/physical ground.

Another important treatment involved sauna detoxification while using specific supplements to aid its effectiveness while also managing the negative effects on the body. All these treatments eventually provided me with a stronger physical state of being. At this point my practitioner decided I was strong enough to begin EPD (Enzyme Potentiated Desensitization). EPD involves an intradermal injection of extremely low doses of many, many allergens along with beta-glucuronidase, an enzyme found naturally in the human body. The treatment is a series of shots to cover a huge variety of potential substances that trigger the body’s immune system and aims to desensitize the immune system. This helped me in two ways: it seemed to clear me of many of my sensitivities and, since my body was so sensitive to some things, I had to learn to manage my fear of the reactions and ride them out.

Eventually I successfully “graduated” from the clinic after having completed all the treatments they had in their arsenal. It was suggested that I next seek out energetic/emotional healing. This led me to begin my many years of powerful healing through Shamanic therapies which I will discuss in a future blog.