By Rachel Marshall
Since my childhood, I have woken up with sneeze attacks and an itchy ear. My grandparents and my father had this too. So I believed that allergies are what we have to live with – things we get in legacy from our ancestors. Honestly, my allergies were not life-threatening and the sneezes had just become a part of my daily routine. On days that were bad, I just popped an anti-allergen and went about my life.
Somewhere during the pandemic though, I developed new allergies, and these were the ones that were making my daily life painful. I would wake up fine, but post-lunch would start feeling extremely bloaty, gassy, and acidic through the evening. I visited the bathroom very often and had irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). I would need to pass motions at least 7-8 times a day, sometimes even more. If I visited a restaurant, I had to first go to the bathroom as the smell of food made me pass motions. This went on for a few months, and then I got to a point where I could feel my digestive lining becoming very thin. When I drank water or ate something, I could feel it move through my throat and into my stomach. Not to mention the unbearable pain in my stomach which got worse through the day and by the end of the day, I felt like someone had stuffed rocks in my stomach.
I knew I needed help, but I was convinced that an allopathy doctor was not going to be able to cure me, they may at best give me some medicines for temporary relief.
I had heard about Nambudripad’s Allergy Elimination Techniques (NAET) and had a feeling that what I was suffering from had to be related to some foods not sitting well in my stomach. I was lucky to find a practitioner in my city (very few practitioners in India as I write this article), and I called her.
I didn’t know much about how the process worked, but I just took the earliest available appointment and went to see Rackhee Trust (my NAET practitioner). Before meeting Rackhee, I didn’t even know what I was allergic to, but I began the process; putting my faith both in the treatment and in Rackhee.
While Rackhee had shared videos and blogs with me before we started, you only realize the depth of the treatment once you start it. NAET as a treatment requires time commitment. Depending on the extent of your allergies (in my case I was pretty much allergic to a number of items), you may need multiple treatments, and it will take at least 12 – 16 weeks to complete the treatment.
When the practitioner starts the treatment with you, the first thing they do is balance your brain and body as they believe that allergies are nothing but your brain telling your body that certain products are not good for it. Only once your brain and body are in sync (so to speak), does the practitioner begin the treatment.
There are about 15 basic treatments that you have to clear before you get to other allergens you may have. These range from Vitamin C to Egg Mix to Calcium among others. The treatment is done using acupressure, some practitioners also use acupuncture.
While the treatment itself seems very basic, it is super powerful.
I remember, post my first treatment, I felt that my body was about to explode because it was going through an absolute upheaval. However, within 25 hours of that treatment, I was perfectly fine. You will need to abstain from whatever item you are being treated for, for a period of 25 hours immediately after the treatment. As per Traditional Chinese Medicine (one of the few disciplines NAET is based on), every allergen takes 25 hours to leave your body.
So, for example, if you are treated for Vitamin C today, you will be required to avoid all items containing Vitamin C for the next 25 hours. If you don’t clear the allergens in the first treatment, you will need to repeat the treatment(s) until your body clears it completely. It seems a bit overwhelming at first, but believe me, you will get to a point when you will clear it and you will feel great about eating those food items again.
In my case, during the treatment, we realized that I was lactose intolerant. Truth be told, I was shocked because I have drunk milk and eaten dairy products all my life. I love curd and I used to have it as part of my lunch every day prior to my treatment not knowing that it was the cause of my suffering.
I had to do multiple treatments of various components of calcium before I could get treated for milk and curd. Sometimes when the body cannot process a certain nutrient/vitamin or food item, its component(s) needs to be treated to ease the body into accepting the allergen without sending the body into an allergic reaction. Therefore, sometimes one or more base components are treated before treating the compound itself.
During the course of my treatment, I was also able to treat my environment-related allergies with NAET. There were other aches and pains I had that I didn’t even realize were allergy-related and those were also cured as a byproduct, as I was treated for my allergies.
Over the last couple of years I had developed pain in my right knee, it wasn’t constant but it would come up once in a while. I attributed it to running and told myself that it was nothing but a runner’s knee. I was convinced I'd have to live with it if I wanted to continue running. During my treatment for RNA protein, the pain shot up again, making me realize that the pain was not due to running but allergies related to RNA. I had to go through about 7 treatments of RNA and boom my knee pain was gone. I run pain-free now.
It took me about three months of regular NAET treatments, but I am now mostly allergy-free eating what I want without any pains or discomfort and I am so very thankful of NAET and my practitioner Rackhee who have been truly patient with me throughout my journey.
Midway through the treatment, I had an emotional breakdown and thought I would never be able to eat cheese and yogurt again or even eat ice cream, but Rackhee did promise me that a day will come soon when I will be able to enjoy ice cream again, and now I do.
NAET and Rackhee were God-sent to me. Given that I am generally an allergic person, in the event of new allergies developing in the future, at least now I know that there is a cure and I don’t have live with allergies disrupting my life anymore.
As penned by Rachel Marshall
(name changed for patient confidentiality)