The Skinny on Fat

How awesome is fat? 

Fat is so great.  Your whole body needs fat.  Your brain needs fat, your nervous system needs fat, your skin needs fat, and your hair needs fat.

How do we get fat into our body?  From our digestive system.  When we eat any food that happens to have fat in it, sensors in our mouth send a signal to the brain saying, “Here comes some fat!  You’d better inform the Gall Bladder.”  The brain quickly text messages the Gall Bladder, the organ that holds Bile, the magic soap for fat.  Once the Gall Bladder gets the text, it mobilizes all its resources and squirts bile into the digestive system.  As the partly-digested food passes from the Stomach down to the Small Intestine, the Gall Bladder’s bile begins the process of breaking down the fats into digestible, absorbable pieces.

Now here’s where things can get interesting.  If the body has a good relationship with fats, and the Gall Bladder is producing the right amount of bile, the food is further broken down in the Small Intestine and absorbed into the body.  Then the fats can break down vitamins (like Vitamin K, Vitamin A, Vitamin D, and Vitamin E), moisturize the skin, protect the nervous system, and feed the brain.  On the other hand, if the body has a less-than-optimal relationship with fats, then the Small Intestine goes, “Ugh!  What am I going to do with this mess?  Get rid of it!”  And it sends the fats that it cannot metabolize to the colon (and your poop floats in the toilet), and to the blood (who may choose to wallpaper with the particularly sticky bits of fat, thereby building up what we refer to as hardening of the arteries).  Then your doctor informs you that you have high cholesterol…which ironically means that your body is starved for fats that it cannot absorb.

While we’re on the subject, let’s talk about cholesterol.  Cholesterol is actually a very important nutrient in the body.  Cholesterol is the mother of all steroid hormones, from which sex hormones and Cortisol are made.  So this means that if you can’t metabolize fats, you couldn’t make a hormone if someone paid you.  So if you suddenly adopt a non-fat diet, don’t expect good sleep or a healthy sex drive.

How do you know if you have problems metabolizing fat?  All you have to do is look at the parts of the body that are dependent on fats. 

Let’s start with your skin.  Is your skin dry, no matter how much lotion you slather on yourself?  Your skin needs plenty of water, and the body’s ability to hydrate, but without fats, no matter how much water you drink, your skin will be dry, rough, and flaky.  When someone’s hormones are unstable because they’re in transition, like in menopause or puberty, you may see more acne because of the sex hormone’s effects on the skin.  An inability to metabolize fats just makes this condition worse because the sebaceous glands can’t regulate the oils properly.

The nervous system is another important aspect of the body affected by our relationship to fats.  If we have a good relationship with fats, our body will insulate and protect the nervous system with fats.  Then we will be mostly calm, cool, and collected…rather than jumpy, hyperactive, and overstimulated.  Our good relationship with fats will provide us with deep restful sleep because our fight-or-flight nervous system will allow our rest-heal-digest nervous system to be in control during our sleep time.

If we have a good relationship with fats, our brain will work smoothly and successfully.  There will be an effortless orchestration of our hormones and neurotransmitters.  We won’t walk into a room and say, “What was I going to do?”,  or lose our train of thought, or forget what we were going to say.  Our senses will be sharp; our thinking will be clear.

Developmentally, our relationship with fats is crucial during early childhood, when we are growing exponentially; during puberty, when our hormones kick in; and later in life, when our endocrine system is challenged by changing hormone levels—not just menopause, and not just for women, but for all people—because scientists are beginning to take note of other hormonal changes like thyropause and andropause. 

Other signs that you have problems with fat: meats and fatty foods feel “heavy” to you.  Because proteins and fats are inextricably linked in our food supply, our bodies need them to provide both protein and fats.  You may gravitate toward a vegetarian diet because you feel “lighter” when you do not eat meat, or when you eat only chicken or fish.  Although some people can eat a low-fat diet for a while, be wary of the telltale signs that your body isn’t getting the nutrition it needs.  If a vegetarian or vegan diet isn’t working for you, your lips and tongue become pale, and your hair becomes dry and thin.

And you may crave sugar!  Here’s the reason. Your brain can use three things:  water, amino acids and fats, and sugar in the form of blood glucose.  Glucose is the easiest, quickest source of energy; like water, glucose is absorbed instantly when it hits the stomach.  So when the brain sends us a signal that it needs energy, it’s just an impulse.  We won’t necessarily slow it down and think about it.  The brain says, “I need energy!”  And we NEVER interpret this to mean, “I need water!” or “I need some amino acids!” Rather, what we hear is, “I need chocolate!” or “I need some sugar!”

The problem with sugar cravings, of course, is that they tend to make us eat more sugar.  Which will put a strain on our pancreas and liver, and make our blood sugar do loop-de-loops all day long.  Eating sugar makes our blood sugar soar…and then drop like a rock…and then we crave sugar again.  All day long.  But that’s another story.

So take a good look at your diet.  Are you giving your body the nutrients it needs?  One of the easiest ways to balance out a lack of fat in your diet is to supplement with fish oil.  Consider DHA or Omega 3 fatty acids, readily available at your local health food store.  These supplements are safe and easy to take, even for children.  Nordic Naturals makes a great DHA Jr. formula, delivered in a strawberry-flavored caplet that even my picky kids will take.  Another great one is Omega 3-6-9 Emulsion by Biogenesis.  That one tastes like lemon custard!  Sometimes easing into dietary changes by supplementing with botanicals and nutraceuticals first can help you make the changes you need to deliver the right nutrients to your body. 

Most people can successfully supplement with Omega 3 or fish oil. If you supplement with Omegas or fish oil and you have problems, digestive or otherwise, consider consulting a health professional who can assist you with your absorption. 

Staying Young

I never imagined that I would ever get old. It never occurred to me. I watched my parents age, I watched my friends get old and fat, but never thought it would ever happen to me.

Upon entering the fifth decade myself, I began to notice alarming signs that I was no longer as young as I used to be. It began with my eyesight—which was fine one day, but then suddenly my arms just weren't long enough—and ended with my waistline suddenly swelling like the top of a banana walnut muffin.

To understand how to stay young, you must first know what makes you old. Signs of agedness—grey hair, creaky swollen joints, loss of waistline (when the six pack degenerates into a keg), farsightedness, dry skin and bat wings—have a lot to do with what Chinese Medicine calls Jing Cycles, which are sets of years in which we grow, mature, age, and die. Here's a quote from the Su Wen (Simple Questions), written sometime around the Second Century BCE:

In a man, at the age of 8 the boy's kidney energy is abundant, his hair and teeth grow. At the age of 16 his kidney energy is even more abundant...and he can produce a child. At the age of 24, the kidney energy peaks, ...the wisdom teeth appear, and growth is at its peak. At the age of 32, tendons and bones are at their strongest, and the muscles are full and strong. At the age of 40, the kidney is weakened, the hair begins to fall out and the teeth become loose. At the age of 48, Yang Qi is exhausted, the face becomes darker, and the hair turns grey. At the age of 56, the liver energy is weakened, the tendons cannot move...and the body begins to grow old. At the age of 64, hair and teeth are gone.

In Chinese Medicine, we talk a lot about the Kidneys. The Kidneys store your Essence, also known as Jing. Jing controls your growth and development, as well as your sexual energy and fertility. As such, it is seen as a very important and precious substance.

Basically, in a nutshell, longevity is based on two main things: your pre-natal Jing (which you inherited from your parents) and your post-natal Jing (which is entirely up to you). There are two things that determine the state of your Jing:

1. The food you eat
2. The balance in your life

This is why we talk so much about balance in Chinese Medicine. Aging really can be controlled, but it takes a considerable amount of discipline. The more stressed out you become, the more you work overtime, the more alcohol you drink, the less you exercise, and the more double-ended burning you do on your candle, the faster you will age.

Luckily, the aging process is reversible, and it's relatively easy to do. Besides exercising regularly and eating healthily (which only you can do), regular acupuncture or BodyTalk treatments will bring your body back into balance. And you can eliminate your food, hormone, and enzyme sensitivities, which will repair broken energetic pathways and allow your body to function optimally, like it did when you were twenty. Honestly, it's the best preventive medicine available anywhere.

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Tapping: The Reset Button

Recently I ran into one of my former patients in a grocery store parking lot. When she asked me what I was doing these days, I told her that I'd incorporated BodyTalk into my practice. After a short description of BodyTalk, in which I mentioned that the Cortices technique in BodyTalk might help her son's asthma, she remarked with amazement that she recalled tapping on her own head as a child to stop her wheezing.
You might have noticed that some of the newer treatment modalities involve tapping: there's EFT, which works on emotions, there's NAET, best known for allergy elimination, and BodyTalk. Aside from the tapping, all three modalities seem very different.
Why do they all use tapping? Well, for starters, tapping has been around in indigenous cultures for centuries. Tapping wakes up the body and the brain and helps bring about healing.
Think about your spine. Inside your spine—and surrounding your brain--is cerebrospinal fluid which, according to osteopaths and craniosacral therapists, moves in its own rhythm. In NAET and BodyTalk, we are gently interrupting this rhythm to change our relationship with a substance or to call the brain's attention to something. The interruption of this rhythm is communicated to the brain and other places in the body via the cerebrospinal fluid and spinal nerves, which travel up and down the interior of the spine and emerge out of each vertebra.
We've all had a similar experience when we've contracted a case of the hiccups, which miraculously disappears when someone comes up behind us and startles us...and the hiccups miraculously disappear. We've just been reset, and our diaphragm no longer spasms with each inhalation.
It's like having a conversation with a friend, and just as you're in the middle of relating how your boss gave you so much work to do, someone runs up and interrupts you very loudly by shouting something in your face. Your mind goes blank. You can't remember what you were saying.
The same thing happens with tapping. As you tap on your head (or as your practitioner taps on you), causing a gentle interruption of the natural rhythm of the cerebrospinal fluid, your brain is surprised enough to be able to change its relationship with that substance, as in NAET. Or as in BodyTalk, your brain notices a lack of communication between your lungs and your spleen that has been causing coughing and phlegm for the past two weeks, and re-establishes the connection.

www.quantumlinkwellness.com

Can't Stop? Gotta Have It?

Have you ever noticed that sometimes you eat something (chocolate, for instance, or potato chips), and it just tastes soooo good, you just want that taste running over your tongue forever, and you keep eating and keep eating? Sometimes do you notice that you just can't stop? And then later, do you find that your stomach hurts, or you're just really bloated, or you get diarrhea after one of these episodes?
Or do you ever eat one thing and then really crave something else? Whenever I eat Indian food, for instance, I really REALLY want something sweet afterward.
What is this phenomenon? Why does this happen? Is it really that we have absolutely no control over our palates?
Actually, it's not you.
It's allergies.
You see, sometimes allergies look and behave a lot like addictions. If you know anything about Alcoholics Anonymous, you'll know that the first step is admitting that you're powerless over your addiction, and secondly you acknowledge the disease concept of alcoholism that your body is allergic to alcohol, and that's why you can't stop drinking. They even describe alcoholism as an “allergy.” And the truth is, they're absolutely right.
The reason you can't stop eating certain foods, or drinking, is because you happen to be allergic to that specific thing. The allergy creates a biochemical reaction in your body that makes you want more.
This also explains why some people are addicted to sugar and others aren't—it's the same reason why some people are alcoholics and others aren't...because everyone's biochemical makeup is unique.
This is why allergy elimination is so powerful. After preparing the body by normalizing the immune system with a certain number of treatments, we can treat you for the thing you're addicted to. Suddenly, it doesn't have the same pull it used to.
I remember when I was treated for my sugar addiction. I happen to be the adult child of a carb and sugar addict. For those of you familiar with addiction, you know that dual addictions are often more difficult to treat. And as a patient of mine once said, “I never met a piece of bread I didn't like.” I couldn't go to a party without standing next to a bowl of pretzels or popcorn and eating it all. I couldn't pass up a plate of doughnuts without having at least one and usually two. Yet after treating sugar, I suddenly didn't need to do that. I could pass up the doughnut because truthfully, I didn't want it anymore. I still appreciated the taste, but I could stop, and I could say no.
Don't misunderstand me. I'm not simply using the language of addiction to make a point; rather, I'm using the language of addiction to demonstrate how powerful allergies can be, and to assure you that it's not in your head. It's not because your character is weak. It's not because you're not good enough. It's because there is a biochemical process that is causing you to lose control. And now, with allergy elimination, there's hope. You can have control over your addiction.

http://www.quantumlinkwellness.com/

When A Cold Is Not A Cold, part 2

Continuing on this controversial subject, I would like to posit another relatively outlandish notion, and that is that some people may be sensitive to cold, as an environmental factor, in the same way that some people are sensitive to wheat or lactose intolerant.
Now, before you dismiss me entirely, humor me for one moment and suspend your belief in Western Medicine and Germ Theory. You can come back to it later.
I must remind you of three basic theorems of Allergy Elimination. They are:
1. An Allergy, according to Allergy Elimination, is anything you are not in harmony with, and includes sensitivities, intolerances, and hypersensitivity reactions.
2. You can be sensitive to, intolerant of, or allergic to pretty much anything on the planet.
3. Allergy elimination helps your immune system.
Environmental factors are things like heat, cold, dampness, dryness, wind, and barometric pressure. Environmental factors can either cause sensitivity in and of themselves, or they can combine with other things you might be sensitive to and cause a stronger reaction.
So for the purposes of this article, let's focus on COLD as an environmental factor. Some people do better in cold weather. Some do better in warmer weather. If you are sensitive to cold, here are some symptoms you might experience:
runny nose
aching muscles
constipation
fatigue
nasal congestion
headache
joint stiffness
Now, the funny thing about these symptoms is that they look a lot like a cold! How do you tell the difference?
Think about the DURATION of the symptoms and what happened directly preceding the onset of the symptoms. Did your “cold” start when the weather changed? Do you get a cold that lasts all winter and disappears when it gets warm again? If so, chances are, it's not a cold! You might just be sensitive to cold.
From the vantage point of allergy elimination, cold can affect specific organs in your body. If it affects your colon, you might get constipated. If it affects your stomach, you might have stomach pains, or you might experience a loss of appetite. If you are sensitive to cold, it usually affects the lungs, because as the air temperature drops, your lungs are directly exposed to the drop in temperature. Hence, you might have a cough, or runny nose, or sore throat.
Treating your sensitivities with allergy elimination will boost your immune system in many ways. For one thing, it will prevent those symptoms from occurring. An allergic or sensitivity reaction is hard on your body. Eliminating the sensitivity will basically cut down on the number of things your body has to deal with on a daily basis. And you'll feel better, too.

http://www.quantumlinkwellness.com/

When A Cold Is Not A Cold

Recently a friend of mine told me that her daughter had been sick with a cold for two months.
“That's not a cold,” I told her. “It's an allergy.”
“Ridiculous!” my friend responded. “She doesn't have allergies.”
“If it was a cold,” I went on, “it would have been over and done with in a week, max.”
“Is that why she's not responding to the antibiotics?” my friend asked.

Here's two important facts you need to know about colds:
If it's a cold, it is caused by a virus, not a bacteria. Therefore, antibiotics will be useless.
Colds only last about a week. If it lasts longer, it's not a cold.
So how do you tell if it's a cold or an allergy?
First of all, if you have nasal stuffiness, sneezing, or runny nose for longer than a week, start to look at patterns. Do you notice it at a certain time of day? Do you notice that you get a runny nose after eating a particular thing? Is it possible that this happened the last time you ate it?
I had a friend several years ago whose daughter's nose would run every morning after breakfast. She called it “The Breakfast Cold.” Basically, the child was reacting to the food she ate every morning.
Secondly, does your runny nose or sneezing happen at a certain time of year? Do you have what seems to be a month-long cold every March? If so, chances are it's allergies and not a cold. Environmental allergies often mimic colds in their symptoms. The only difference is the duration.
Third, do not underestimate the effect of emotions. If you find yourself in the midst of a month-long cold after the death of a loved one, it's probably your body trying to work out the grief you still feel.
And emotions can be tricky, too! I was treating a patient once for his mold allergies. “My mold allergy is always the strongest in the fall,” he told me. Interesting, I thought; in California, the fall is the dryest time of year, and mold is usually at an all-time low in the fall. I tested him, and found that he wasn't allergic to mold at all. So when I tested again to find out what it was that was triggering his allergy each fall, it turned out to be an emotion...and, long story short, it was in the fall that his father had died several years earlier. After clearing the emotion, his autumn allergy disappeared.

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Winter: The Season of the Dreaded Cough

I'll never forget the feeling...being awakened at 11:30 pm, soon after falling asleep, by the sound of my son's cough in his room next to ours...that feeling of dread and fear because my son can't breathe.
Every mother of an asthmatic child knows exactly what I'm talking about. There's a certain sound that every child makes when they cough, when you know they're in trouble. For my son, it was when the cough (which had begun 36 hours previously) had pretty much exhausted his lungs. His voice shrank to a whisper. He began to wheeze. And the cough shook his small frame, sending spasms throughout his entire body, sometimes causing him to gag at the end. I knew there was no medicine that would get us through the night, no matter what the doctor said, and that it would be a long, scary night indeed.
Fortunately for us, I learned from our nutritionist that my son had food allergies that were creating copious amounts of phlegm in his small system. When we eat food that is undigestible—either because we're allergic to that food and it creates inflammation in our gut or because we're sensitive to that food and can't absorb it—the residue of the undigested food produces excess mucus. When we reach a certain critical mass, so to speak, of mucus that our body can't store any longer, the mucus is released as phlegm, usually through the nose, in a form that looks, for all intents and purposes, like a cold. This is what our nutritionist explained to us. Hmm, I thought, that sounds suspiciously like Chinese Medicine, which I myself had studied before having children. And, come to think of it, my son seemed like he was getting an awful lot of colds—sometimes he got a cold every two or three weeks! But, I realized, no one else in the family was getting these “colds,” which made me wonder. Maybe the nutritionist was right.
So we followed the nutritionist's advice: No eggs. No wheat. No cow's milk dairy of any sort, including butter. No soy. And much less sugar. It was a miracle—my son got dramatically better in a very short period of time. I was amazed.
Now, for those of you who have never attempted an egg-free, wheat-free, dairy-free, soy-free diet, let me share with you how incredibly difficult this is to do, especially with children, and especially with someone who is a very picky eater to begin with, like my son is. Basically, you can't go out to eat. Every kid's meal known to mankind is replete with wheat and dairy, not to mention things no parent really wants to know about. Basically, on an egg-free, wheat-free, dairy-free diet, you eat meat, chicken, or fish, and vegetables, which if you're interested in losing weight is a really great diet to follow but unfortunately my son, aged 5 at the time, was already too skinny. And basically, we spent a lot of time at the kitchen table amidst plates of (you guessed it) protein and vegetables, while my son cried and said, “Mom, when can I get off this boring diet?” Breaks a mom's heart.
What kind of a life is this, I ask you? Doomed, at age 5, to eat only meat and vegetables! Ask any parent whose child has had to follow this diet, and they will tell you it is very difficult, but better than pulmicort and albuterol, the asthma medicine du jour. And I seconded that every time we fell off the wagon after a bithday-party soaked weekend, or a visit to the grandparents, or when I gave in because I just couldn't listen to the whining anymore, and the dreaded cough came back. Yes, I sighed, life is a sick joke.
But then we discovered NAET, the greatest allergy elimination therapy known to man, the holy grail of alternative medicine. NAET is a combination of Chinese medicine, applied kinesiology (muscle testing), and chiropractic spinal massage. It actually change your relationship with any substance you might be reacting to. I treated my son for eggs, and the cough went away. Really—I'm not kidding. It resurfaced twice in two years—once after he ate salmon, and once after he ate rice pasta—but after treating him for those two things, he basically doesn't cough anymore. The dreaded cough is gone!!

www.quantumlinkwellness.com

Here Come the Rains

I knew that as soon as I blogged about the dry autumn, it would change! And here come the rains...
The rainy season in Los Angeles is interesting, in that we have a “rainy season.” As opposed to pretty much the whole rest of the country, where it rains pretty much whenever it wants to, Los Angeles stands alone as one of the few places in the United States where there is a long dry season followed by a short wet one in the winter.
For allergy sufferers, this has several implications, depending on your particular allergy. For those suffering from dust allergies, the long dry months are particularly difficult. However, it is the rainy season, with its accompanying dampness, that affects those suffering from mold.

If you'll notice the Local Pollen Count, it's not even raining. And yet the mold levels have begun to rise in comparison to where they were last week.

Mold is an interesting thing. Brought on by the dampness of a rainy day, the next day's breeze blows it all over the place. Since our homes and offices are fairly airtight, mold blows in when we open the door, and sets up residence.
So what's so bad about mold? Well, nothing—if you're not sensitive to it. On the other hand, inhaling mold spores can cause coughing and allergic asthma to those who are sensitive to it.
What can you do about mold? Pretty much the ONLY thing you can do about mold—aside from clearing your allergy to it—is to keep humidity levels low. You can obtain a dehumidifier (not common in LA but de rigueur in Houston, Texas, where mold grows on the backs of couches and inside pianos in damp houses). And you can be happy that it's only a short season that will end soon...

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Fall, the Perfect Season to Clear Pollen Allergies

Autumn in Los Angeles is a great time to eliminate pollen allergies, especially when it's a warm, dry autumn like we've been experiencing this year.
If you look on the right side of this blog post, you'll notice the Local Pollen Count. It's always easier to clear an allergy that you can avoid, and today, most of the pollens and mold are very low.
This means that if you were to come for a treatment for mold or grass pollen, you probably wouldn't even have to wear a mask for that day.
The key in allergy elimination, as practiced in NAET, is avoidance. For the 25 hours after the treatment, it is crucial that you avoid the allergen to the best of your abilities. This gives your body a chance to detox each organ from the substance. If you are not able to avoid the substance you're clearing—either because it's in the air, always touching you, or within your own body—you can always simply massage your gate points every two hours to get you through the 25-hour avoidance period following the treatment.
And when you clear your pollen and mold allergies this fall, you'll be glad you did when winter and spring roll around...and you'll be the only one NOT sneezing!

http://www.quantumlinkwellness.com

The 25-Hour Avoidance in NAET

After each NAET treatment, you must avoid the allergen treated for the following 25 hours.
Why is this necessary? Why 25 hours? After all, didn't the practitioner just test and determine that I passed the treatment?
To answer to these questions, I must first explain about the Chinese Circadian Clock.
In Chinese Medicine, each internal organ, and its corresponding meridian system, is most active at a particular 2-hour period of time each day. This means that the organ's energy is at its highest during this time period. For instance, the time period of 3-5 am is devoted to the Lungs. 5-7 pm is Kidney time. 1-3 am is Liver time.
Here's a list of each internal organ and its corresponding 2-hour time:
Lung: 3-5am
Large Intestine: 5-7am
Stomach: 7-9am
Spleen: 9-11am
Heart: 11am-1pm
Small Intestine: 1-3pm
Urinary Bladder: 3-5pm
Kidney: 5-7pm
Pericardium: 7-9pm
Triple Burner: 9-11pm
Gall Bladder: 11pm-1am
Liver: 1-3am
The Circadian Clock has many applications in Chinese Medicine, which we won't go into right now. But in NAET, the Clock explains why we need to avoid allergens for 25 hours.
Imagine, for a moment, that you have just had an NAET treatment, and let's say we just treated you for pickles because although you love them, they give you terrible gas. And let's say that your appointment was at 3pm, which means that we actually treated you at about 3:10pm. You walked out of the office at 3:50pm.
3-5pm is Urinary Bladder time, and as such, your bladder was wide awake at the time of the treatment. It's as if your bladder said, “Hey, I got it. I now have a new relationship with pickles.”
However, your Kidneys were not experiencing maximum Qi and blood flow at the time of the treatment, and as such, were they to come into contact with pickles during their 2-hour time period, they may not be able to “hold” the treatment. On the other hand, if you were to completely avoid pickles from 5-7pm when your kidneys were experiencing maximum Qi and blood flow, your kidneys would be able to maintain their new relationship with pickles.
Of course, if you were to repeat your treatment every two hours, you could eat all the pickles you wanted. But then NAET would be very expensive, and nobody would do it...so it's better to just avoid the allergen for 25 hours. Because anybody can do anything for just one day, right?

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How Allergy Elimination Works

Allergy Elimination is real and it works. There are several ways you can do it. Today, I'll be talking about Allergy Elimination as it is done in NAET. NAET is a powerful way to eliminate your allergies to virtually anything. Check it out at www.naet.com, or my website, www.alternativeallergysolutions.com.
In NAET, allergy elimination works by stimulating the spinal nerves. The spinal nerves communicate information from the brain to the internal organs and back to the brain again. When we stimulate these nerves while holding an allergen in our hand, or by maintaining skin-to-skin contact with someone holding an allergen, it changes our relationship with that allergen from a negative to a positive one.
Now I know this is a big mouthful to swallow, and here I'd like to interject the premise that this is NOT Western Medicine by any stretch of the imagination. This is energy medicine, and as such, it cannot be understood through western or scientific means.
When we stimulate the spinal nerves through a vigorous massage, coupled with breathing techniques, what is happening is that we are interrupting the normal flow of information via the nervous system. If you think of the brain as the body's computer, we are basically pressing the “reset” button.
Think of two magnets. If you line them up end-to-end, with the positive and negative poles together, the two magnets attract. If you take the second magnet and flip it around so that the two positive (or two negative) poles are together, they repel each other.
The same thing happens to us with things we're allergic to. It's like we're the first magnet and the allergen is the second magnet. If we have a harmonious relationship with an item, the magnets are lined up +-+-, and the two magnets attract. If it is a disharmonious relationship, the magnets are lined up +--+, and they repel each other.
In NAET, when we stimulate the spinal nerves, the second magnet gets flipped around so that the magnets attract and the relationship changes from a disharmonious one to a harmonious one.

http://www.quantumlinkwellness.com

When Smoke Gets In Your Eyes: Fires in SoCal

There is a reason that I have included the Local Pollen Count on my blog page. Please take a moment to notice that today, under the heading “Air Quality” it says “Unhealthy for Sensitive People,” and under “Primary Pollutant” it says “Particulate matter.”
Attention, Southern California: we have a state of emergency. Please stay in your homes with windows and doors shut.
It may seem pretty obvious, and you may wonder, why is she going on about this? But I would really like to make a solid point here.
If this fire was a simple brush fire, in which trees, grass, and shrubs were burning, I would probably not make such a big deal about it. However, what is burning today are houses. House fires are much more dangerous to all of us, especially those of us with compromised immune systems, because of the toxic content of the smoke.
Houses are constructed to last. There's insulation made of fiberglass, cellulite, vermiculite, polystyrene, and polyurethane. Think burning plastic. There's arsenic-treated 2 X 4's,which frame pretty much each and every house in Southern California. There's sheetrock, which is made of gypsum, fiberglass, plasticizer, potash (a highly toxic and reactive chemical), and EDTA (made from formaldehyde and cyanide). On the sheetrock is housepaint, containing more toxic chemicals. There's carpeting, containing natural and synthetic fibers, including polypropylene, nylon, and other versions of plastic. Then there's siding, which is usually either stucco, a mixture of cement and plaster, or siding, which is usually made of synthetic materials. Of course, the newest siding is insulated, and contains polystyrene foam. And then there's shingles, which are either concrete or plastic, waterproofed red clay, or asphalt, made of fiberglass. And then there's all the stuff that's IN your house...at least half of which is made of plastic.
Can you imagine what we are breathing when we go outside today? It's not just ash from burning trees. It's ash from burning plastic. You might as well light up and smoke a carton of cigarettes.
So the best thing to do today, especially if you have children, or if your immune system is compromised for any reason, is to hop on an airplane and fly up to rural Oregon. Failing that, please stay inside, drink plenty of water, and keep your doors and windows closed until the skies clear, which should be sometime in the next 3 days. And let's all send good energy to our planet—the environmental impact of this catastrophe will probably be felt for a long time.

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The Allergic Continuum

When most people think of allergies, they think of the classic definition, the hypersensitivity reaction. This type of allergy is the kind that shows up in a blood or scratch test at your local MD allergist's office. The blood test or scratch test reveals the presence of IgE, and in some cases, IgG in the body, and determines, in hard scientific fact, that you do indeed have an allergy.
However, this is a very narrow definition of allergies. In fact, hypersensitivity reactions of this sort are only one of five types, the rest referring to autoimmune disorders. Furthermore, the classic and narrow definition of allergies as hypersensitivity reactions don't always answer our questions as to why things make us sick. I'm sure you know people who have had reactions that look like “allergies,” and yet when they go to the allergist and get tested, the results are negative. Or the results are very specific and don't account for all their symptoms. For example, the test may show an allergy to milk and cats, but nothing else. Yet when they eat nightshade vegetables they get bloated and have indigestion. According to the test they are not allergic to potatoes, peppers, or tomatoes.
What's going on here?
The hypersensitivity definition of allergies, as I said before, is a very narrow definition of an allergy. There is a continuum of allergies. On the “weak” end, we have sensitivities: things we are sensitive to, that cause symptoms such as headaches, insomnia, indigestion, gas, body aches, and diarrhea. Since this is not a hypersensitivity reaction, there are no antibodies to the substance, although inflammation, heat, or other symptoms may occur. In the middle of the spectrum are intolerances, things we naturally avoid because they make us feel uncomfortable enough that we have identified them as an inhospitable guest in our system. Intolerances include things that make us sick: seafood that causes vomiting; grass that causes itching; milk that causes painful bloating and constipation. On the “severe” end of the spectrum we find allergies in the classic definition: things to which our body has produced antibodies after our first exposure, and which produce in us moderately serious reactions (swelling, hives, itching, etc). And at the end of the “severe” end is anaphylaxis. Exposure to these items, which our body has identified as severely dangerous, can produce life-threatening reactions or death. These are your peanut, milk, egg, and wheat anaphylaxes.
Just because your MD doctor has tested you by scratch or blood test and has found that you have a specific number of “allergies,” don't assume that's the end of the story. Pay attention to how you feel—after a big meal, after eating sweets, after consuming alcoholic beverages, after exposure to chemicals. Notice when you feel a certain way after being exposed to something...and notice when these reactions happen REPEATEDLY. Does that morning smoothie leave you feeling exhausted and lightheaded? Do you get really bloated after that afternoon Diet Coke...and then absolutely have to have another one? Do your eyes tear incessantly after taking the Tylenol you popped in order to take care of that headache you got after cleaning your bathtub with Comet? Being in tune with your body and what it can—and can't—handle can help keep you in control of your own life.

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Allergies Defined

What are allergies, and how do we get them? Why do some people have them, and others don't?

The technical definition of an allergy is a hypersensitivity reaction, which is exactly what it sounds like. At the time of our first exposure to something that our body identifies as harmful to us, an immune cell called a T(H)2 Lymphocyte interacts with another kind of lymphocyte called a B Cell to produce IgE, which is a type of antibody. The antibody binds to a receptor site. This sets the scene for the subsequent exposure. At our next exposure to the allergen, when the antibody is present at the receptor site, histamines are released, causing the classic allergic reaction: inflammation (swelling) and heat (usually in the form of redness, rash, itching, or warmth in the affected area). This reaction happens because we have become hypersensitive to the allergen.

What about people who have allergies at a very young age? Some people are born with allergies, having inheritied them from their parents. Children of allergy sufferers are often allergy sufferers themselves. Other children seem to "grow out" of their allergies at around 8 or 9 years of age. Actually, hormones mask the symptoms of allergies. These same individuals will probably see a resurgence of their allergies in their 50s or 60s as their hormones wane.

We can also aquire allergies. Allergies are aquired through several mechanisms. When our immune system is compromised--by disease, by stress, by a combination of factors--our body may mistakenly identify a harmless item as harmful. This is why mothers (having undergone a change in their immune system so their body won't reject the fetus, and the subsequent stress of childbirth) often report a newfound inability to digest gluten, the protein in wheat, or dairy products. Similarly, a man who lost his job, got divorced, and endured the tragic loss of his father to a car accident, might suddenly become chemically sensitive. An exposure to toxic chemicals during childhood--carpet cleaning agents, or immunizations, for example--can spawn further allergies to other substances, such as foods or environmental factors.

These are just a few examples of how people become sensitive, intolerant, or allergic. The immune system is a complex and multidimensional aspect of our body, and we are just starting to understand the intricacies of how it works.

So why do some people have allergies and others don't? Some people have great genes. Others have two parents with lots of allergies from whom they inherited their own sensitivities. Some people have little stress in their lives, or have adapted to stress in a positive way. We are all different and unique, which is why, although there are common allergies, anyone can be allergic to anything. It's all about polarity. Either we have a positive relationship with something or a negative one. The most important aspect of ourselves is our own awareness of our limitations and our adaptability.

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