<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>

There was a message this morning that rather condemned NAET as charlatan.
Unfortunately, I have not read the original source of the quote, so should
not, by all rational assessments, comment on this subject. However, as the
person who recently wrote three long messages to the CELIAC LIST about
NAET, and seem to have started the discussion, I feel condemned to respond.

Today's message was written by a PhD candidate at Cornell University whom I
know and admire, so this response is not one that I send off the top of my
head.

>>I know that many find usefull information on this list, if they suffer
>>
>>>from wheat allergies. However, the idea that the reaction is 'viewed by
>>>the brain as a threat...', is not the problem for most of us to want
>>>relief from.
>>
>>This statement on the NAET website is simply wrong, as are others. Allergic
>>reactions don't originate in the brain. That's just a way of suggesting
>>that it's all in your mind and some new age healing will take care of it.
>>
>>Neither do nerves transport energy through the body. It seems to me that
>>this "Dr. Devi" (Dr. of what, since she mentions being a registered nurse,
>>it's probably not medicine) doesn't know much. And the idea of testing for
>>allergies by pushing on someone's arm while that person holds a substance
>>is really ridiculous. It's pretty revealing that she named this method
>>"kinesiology" although she claims to have invented it. We're supposed to
>>believe it's some ancient technique used in China for millenia.
>>
>>I wouldn't trust this NAET thing, even if some people say it helps them.

Let's take the simple things first.  The "doctor" who devised NAET is a
Doctor of Chiropractic. She is also a Doctor of Osteopathic  Medicine, and
has a PhD, although I don't know in what field, nor from what institution.
As the medical professionals in this country are now admitting that there
are certain cituations where chiropractic and/or osteopathic treatment are
better than standard medical treatment, and as medical insurance is now
covering chiropractic treatments and osteopathic treatments for some
problems, I don't think you can reject the term "doctor" in this case. I
have been treated by a doctor of osteopathy for back trouble with
tremendous success.  My son was on the administrative staff of a hospital
in Pennsylvania that was an osteopathic hospital.  Regular MD's however,
used the facilities, and worked hand in hand with the MD's.

The doctor's  last  name is Nambudripad (she is from India) and Devi
happens to be her first name, but I have never heard her called Dr. Devi. I
supposed it is a short term and therefore easier to remember and pronounce.


"Viewed by the brain" is an attempt to simplify a physical phenomenon and
describe it in layman's terms.  NAET is NOT in any way saying that any
medical problem, including any allergy, is "all in your mind" and can be
cured by some mumbo jumbo. They are saying that pressure or needles
connected with energy chanels can "short circuit" negative reactions to
various allergens. Acupuncture is not concerned with nerves, it is
concerned with energy transfer and the US medical professionals and
scientists in the field here in the USA are now admitting that the ancient
Chinese practice of acupuncture does work in many illnesses and that the
energy "lanes" or "channels" are real, even though there is no physical
vein or nerve or anything else that one can find when disecting  the body.

Spooky? - you bet.  Real?  Beyond the shadow of a doubt. Think of the
Western trained doctors who have gone to China to see for themselves and
have returned with stories of surgery, dental work, child birth, compound
fractures set, etc. etc. etc.  with only acupuncture as "anaesthetic."
Those doctors cannot say why it works, and for them that is completely
frustrating.  They do, however. say that it DOES work and now they are
using the treatments in their own practices, or hiring acupuncturists to
work in place of or along with anaesthesiologists.

 Why, for instance, if you have a cramp in your leg and you bite your lip,
does the cramp go away?  Why, if you are suffering from nausea (especially
when related to being sea sick or air sick) and you press certain spots on
your wrist, does the nausea go away? [Food poisoning is a different story.]
Why does it help pain in various areas of the body to rub one's feet?  I am
not a specialist in this field, and I cannot give you a host of examples,
but I know that I have been tested for food sensitivities by the straight
medical tool of the ELISA test - very expensive  with blood drawn and sent
to labs around the country.  Actually, Dr Jaffe, who devised that test in
the first place, was the one who gave me the test. I have also been tested
with RAST skin tests, and I have been tested with applied kinesiology -
hold a small thin glass vile containing the possible food allergens in one
hand and have the other arm pressed - and the resulting list of food
allergens  found for me in EISA and NAET are the same - with no knowledge
on the part of any one of the testing situations about the results of the
other tests. RAST was not as effective.

This business of applied kinesiology is NOT something that Western medicine
can explain in ordinary terms, but IT DOES WORK!  So please, don't any of
you take it upon yourselves to damn a field about which you probably know
very little.  If you were in Ithaca, I could take you with me to Judith
Abrams's office and you can see all the small children who are now asthma
free who have been wracked with wheezing and coughing and absolutely could
not leave home without intense chemical inhalers, etc, who are now playing
and laughing and looking healthy and enjoying life with no medication, just
because they have had NAET treatments.

I have NEVER said that NAET is successful for celiacs.  I SIMPLY DO NOT
KNOW.  I do know that it has worked for me, but I was never biopsied, so
can't be sure whether I was a celiac or just allergic - although I have had
MD's say that I am a celiac. I am not trying to sell NAET treatments to
anyone, I am simply saying that for me, this has been a miraculous change
in my life.  I will repeat that I am NOT intending to return to a standard
American diet that is dominated by gluten-containing products.  I am
content to know that I have eaten enough gluten in the past month to know
that it no longer causes any negative affect.  I still have almond/rice
bread in the refrigerator, and still eat rice with my dinner.  But I know
that if I order what should be a gluten-free meal in a restaurant, or am
served a supposedly gluten-free meal at the home of a friend, and there
happens to be some hidden gluten I am no longer in danger of getting sick -
or having mental reactions that make me into a most unpleasant person. For
me that is a miracle and one that I am willing to take at face value.

It is hard for Americans and Western educated people to  accept anything
they cannot explain.  Eastern countries are far more apt to be accepting of
something we might label as irrational.  But something we cannot explain
with our rational approach may still be true.  There ARE cases, for
instance, of people who dream that something is going to happen to a
friend, and call long distance to find that what they dreamed has actually
happened.  No telephone wires, no short wave radio - just ESP, or something
equally inexplicable, but just as real as if it had been a telephone
message.

Please keep an open mind, at least for other people.  No one is forcing
anyone to try any treatment of any sort...and I would include a biopsy in
that statement!!

Best regards,  Gayle Kennedy