What Alternative Medicine Means to Me

I'm a first born, rule follower.  I have never had the desire to stand out.  I wanted to please my parents, my teachers, my elders.  I have always gone with the flow.  So the switch to alternative medicine and green living has not been an easy one for me.  I didn't do it to be different.  I don't like to be different.  It certainly wasn't remotely normal when we started down this path.  I just had two sick kids and lots of specialists that wanted to prescribe many, many medications which weren't working.  We needed a new plan but I was afraid to go against the doctors' recommendations.  They made me feel like a bad mom for not doing things their way.

The specialist I now use for both my kids, a pediatrician (MD) who uses alternative methods to treat children with immune issues, explained alternative medicine to me in this way.  God made the body.  He gave us everything we needed to be healthy and whole.  But we live in a broken world with toxins, diseases, and sickness.  Yet the body gives us clues when things are not working correctly.  Pain is an obvious signal.  Allergies, eczema, and asthma are also clues that the immune system needs support.  I use the clues the body is giving us to guide me in giving the body what it needs.

My mainstream doctor looked at allergies and wanted to do allergy shots. Eczema called for prescribed creams and asthma resulted in prescriptions for steroids, albuterol, and pulmicort.  However, our specialist said, "These things are clues."  He did allergy panels and we removed offending foods.  He did blood work and prescribed supplements to treat the vitamin and mineral deficiencies he found.  He encouraged me to keep their struggling bodies away from things that would burden them further like toxins and chemicals.  And then the allergies, eczema, and asthma went away.  Kids were MUCH happier.  Skin became smooth right away.  The asthma stopped right away.  It took awhile, however, before foods that had to be removed could be reintroduced.  A few allergies remain for one of my kids.  But it is nothing like before.  It seemed so logical, this alternative medicine, but people were very suspect and uncomfortable with it.

So I have been willing to be the weird one because it has brought so much health and healing for the kids.  And, because I do not love debates or controversy, I've kept our medical views largely private.  But it is a passion of mine to encourage the mom who is where I was.  So scared and overwhelmed with mounting copays, tons of prescriptions, and sick kids not getting better even though you are doing what the doctor recommends.  There may be a new idea here in the pages of this blog.  May be you'll find some answers and options in unexpected places.  Maybe alternative medicine isn't so crazy after all! 

This blog is for you so if you have questions, ask them!  If I don't know the answer, I'll try and put you in touch with someone that does.  I'd love to learn with you!

The picture above is my kids eating ice cream!  We went all the way to the Grand Canyon and that was the highlight for my daughter!  Such is the way with a child who has had dairy allergies in the past.

Our Beginning with Green Living

My second child was 4 months old, in the ER examination room, struggling to breathe.  My husband was in denial when they decided to admit her.  "I think they are short patients and drumming up business.  She doesn't need to be admitted," he told me.  I was so very sad.  I couldn't believe we were doing this again.  My firstborn's short life had been filled with hospital stays, lots of prescriptions, and many allergies.

At four months old my daughter's entire body was covered in bumps (eczema) and a few places were constantly scabbing over and bloody.  She refluxed constantly and was a very unhappy baby.  She had several loose bowel movements a day that poured out of her diaper and burned her bottom.  She had open sores on her bottom too.  I changed her sheets numerous times a day due to the diaper leaks.  Now she was being hospitalized with asthma. 

We already had a medical baseline allowance with our electric company because of the constant use of the nebulizer for my son (up to 7 times a day for both Pulmicort and Albuterol).  The doctor said it was a lifetime condition when she signed the baseline allowance form and checked the lifetime (no need to be renewed) box.  The medicines and mainstream medical approaches did nothing to help my son get better.  We just spent a lot of time with the nebulizer and he suffered the side affects from the medicines.  I had always listened to and followed the advice of my mainstream doctors so I had felt hopeless that their solution wasn't working.
Recently, however, I had been able to stop all my son's asthma meds by putting him on a diet free from his food intolerances and by giving him supplements to support his immune system.  A specialist had done blood tests to tell me what foods to eliminate and what supplements to give based on his allergy panel and blood work showing vitamin and mineral deficiencies.  I had also been starting to research how to make our home environment and food as non toxic as possible.  Finally something was helping my son get stronger and healthier!

When they released my daughter from the hospital the next afternoon, with several prescriptions and a nebulizer, I knew what I was going to do.  I promised myself I would use the nebulizer IF she started wheezing again but would first try and prevent wheezing with the same protocol I had used for my son.  And she hasn't needed a nebulizer since that hospital stay at 4 months!  No meds.  No wheezing! 

It has been a long journey, but now, just finishing her Kindergarten year, she is a happy, healthy girl who was recently awarded an academic excellence medal at her school's award ceremony.

This blog will discuss the many things we are committed to, as a family, to be as healthy as we can be!  Healing comes from God and I believe with all my heart He is the reason for the healing I've seen in my children's lives.  That being said, He has used some interesting methods to bring that healing about:)  I am committed to praying and asking God to guide us each day.  You may be surprised when you read where that has taken us.