Holistic Healers by Rachel Robertson

Holistic Healers

by Rachel Robertson

Seth Cowan was getting a little tired of ending up in the emergency room. His primary care provider treated his acute flare-ups of back pain with muscle relaxants, which helped for a while, but he would find himself back in the ER just a few months later. "It just seemed like there had to be something else," Cowan says.

At the time he was an undergraduate student at the University of Washington with an interest in health care. He had heard of Bastyr University, a natural health science center just north of Seattle, and decided to see if someone at the student teaching clinic could help. "They addressed my back pain: no more muscle relaxants, no more ER visits," he says.

It was that experience that led him to become a naturopathic doctor, earning his degree at Bastyr, and eventually opening Skagit Natural Family Medicine in Mount Vernon with his wife Michelle Antonich, also a naturopathic doctor and licensed midwife trained at Bastyr.

Getting relief through acupuncture after a car accident, Ellen Geary decided to put her aspirations to be a medical doctor on hold while she studied acupuncture. "I wanted that skill. I wanted that ability," she says. At the time she considered it a place to start in her training as a healer and still intended to resume her medical studies, but 10 years later, Geary (also a graduate of Bastyr University) is content practicing acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine at her office in Anacortes, Still Point Acupuncture Clinic. "There is a really strong practical application to this medicine," she says.

Personal experience with chronic headaches caused by a car wreck brought the power of massage home to Ingrid Thornton. "I was really blown away by what it can do for you," she says, explaining that just three sessions cured her of the debilitating pain.

Years later, after becoming a massage therapist and opening her own business, Bella Soul in Mount Vernon, Thornton got another lesson in healing when she suffered two ruptured discs that required her to be on medication. "Those were the worst two years of my life," she recalls. However, she now sees the positive aspects of that experience. "I think that happened to me for a reason and it has really aided in my being able to facilitate healing with people," she says of her greater ability to relate to her clients that suffer similar injuries.

What is alternative medicine and how can it help?

Naturopathy, chiropractic, acupuncture, massage--we often use the word "alternative" to describe these therapies.

But alternative is perhaps not the right word. As Geary points out, the word implies there is a choice--a rejection of conventional medicine. "They don't have to choose one or the other, they can have both," she says.

When the National Institute of Health established a center for alterative medicine in 1998, they called it The National Center of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), and defined complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) as being outside the typical realm of conventional medicine.

The many and diverse therapies that are encompassed by that definition NCCAM divides into five categories, although they recognize some practices overlap the categories: biologically based practices (use of herbs, special diets, and vitamins), energy medicine (use of energy fields as in Reiki, Qigong, or healing touch), manipulative and body-based (such as Bowen technique, chiropractic, craniosacral, and massage), mind-body medicine (for example, hypnosis, meditation, and yoga), and whole medical systems (complete medical systems, such as traditional Chinese medicine or naturopathy, that have evolved separate from or parallel with conventional medicine).

A growing number of Americans are turning to CAM therapies: According to a report from the Center for Disease Control from a survey done in 2002, 36 percent of adults used some type of CAM therapy over a 12-month period. If prayer was included as a therapy that number jumped to 62 percent. Natural products, deep breathing, meditation, chiropractic care, yoga, massage, and diet were the other most often used therapies. Pain of all kinds (back, neck, joint), colds, anxiety, and depression are some of the more common reasons that people sought out CAM therapies.

Although 28 percent of the people in the study who used CAM therapy felt that conventional medicine could not help them, 54.9 percent believed that a combination of conventional and CAM therapy would help.

HOLISM: SEARCHING FOR THE SOURCE OF DISEASE

Holistic and natural characterize the approach that many practitioners of complementary and alternative medicine take. Whereas conventional medicine often focuses on the treatment of symptoms with medicine or surgery, a holistic approach attempts to find and treat the source of a symptom with natural methods, and has a strong belief in the body’s ability to heal itself given the right conditions.

John Barone, chiropractor and owner of Barone Chiropractic Clinic in Mount Vernon, sees the implementation of chiropractic care coming full circle. "Chiropractic fell into a condition related therapy: back pain, neck pain, headaches; but chiropractic was never designed that way. It was really designed to improve the overall structure of the spine so it didn’t interfere with the nerves and so the body could function more normally," he says explaining that the founder of chiropractic medicine, D.D. Palmer, also focused on diet, exercise, and "autosuggestion" or using your thoughts to promote positive change. "So, that's really where chiropractic originated. I think as a profession we are coming back there."

The 2,000-to-4,000-year-old tradition of Chinese medicine including acupuncture and Chinese herbs focuses on the whole person during diagnosis, which includes a full medical history as well as examination of health indictors such as pulse, skin tone, and the appearance of the tongue. The purpose of the needles is to restore the natural flow of energy along meridians (specific pathways in the body).

"The beautiful thing about acupuncture and Chinese medicine is that there is nothing in the needles—this is the body healing itself," says Geary. "The needle is a prompt that sends a message to the brain." Treatment is not just about the needles, however, it is also about inclusion of the patient in the process of healing. "[Treatment involves] helping a person participate and take responsibility at the deepest level that they are capable of—and we all need help to do that," Geary says.

Many bodywork professionals note that the source of pain is not always the area that hurts. Thornton says, "A muscle that is tight, flexed--doesn't hurt; but a muscle that is being torn, over-stretched--hurts." Low-back pain, she explains as an example, might be caused by tightness in the gluteus muscles.

Nancy Clark also finds herself educating clients about source: "Yes, it could make logical sense that [the pain] is coming from that place of injury, but remember everything is holistic, the body is all connected." As a practitioner of Bowenwork, Clark uses a technique developed by Tom Bowen of Australia in
the 1950s that involves gentle pressure using fingers and thumbs on specific points--such a key muscle or tendon—to activate the nervous system and promote healing. "With Bowenwork you know when you are [at the source] because everything just starts shifting: symptoms go away, problems aren’t there." Problems such as carpal tunnel syndrome, TMJ, and frozen shoulder (which Clark suffered from before receiving Bowenwork herself) are some examples of ailments she treats.

Clark also works with clients to develop more awareness of their body and their habits. "With chronic pain we are overriding those messages all the time because we want to be able to function each day. So, you just ignore the signals your body is giving you," she explains.

Craniosacral therapy, developed by osteopath Dr. William Sutherland in the early 1900s, identifies sources of ailment within the craniosacral system--the fluid and membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord. Treatment involves adjusting the cranial bones.

"It's really, really subtle, it’s the most subtle form of bodywork there is. But with a high level of presence and intention you can feel what is happening and how the bones are in relationship to each other. And so you work with listening to where they are, and if they need fixing then there are techniques that help them come back into alignment," says Miyabi Gladstein, practitioner of craniosacral therapy and massage, which she practices at her office, Good Earth Massage Therapy and Bodywork in Mount Vernon.

Head injuries, TMJ, low back pain, and headaches are some of the problems that Gladstein finds the therapy helps. "It's also really excellent for calming the central nervous system, like if you have a lot of anxiety or serious stress, it’s extremely relaxing and soothing," she says.

Heart disease, headaches, impaired immune response, depression--all have been linked to stress. Although not all the links are understood, pretty much any health professional will agree that reduction of stress is a good thing for one’s health.

"Just to set some time aside to give to self, to be still, to be attuned to what is going on, and just to be present is, in itself, very healing," says Liz Bart, wellness facilitator, yoga instructor, and (most passionately) practitioner of warm water aquatic bodywork including Watsu, a technique derived from Shiatsu.

At Bart's Samish Island pool, Soothing Waters, clients float in body-temperature water while she holds, stretches, bends, and rotates their body to release muscle tension. She finds the treatments particularly helpful for people with mobility impairments, fibromyalgia, arthritis, cerebral palsy, and Parkinson’s disease. "There is a whole freedom in water that is just not possible on land. I think that is one of the really unique characteristics of Watsu," Bart says.

Bart believes that freedom helps to bring about profound changes in people. "It's not uncommon for someone to cry, or to sing, because it is such an emotional release," she says.

Integration with Conventional Medicine

Are conventional medical doctors becoming more accepting of alternative and complementary medicine? The answer seems to be yes: 26 percent of the people who chose to use CAM therapy in the 2002 CDC survey did so because a medical professional suggested it to them.

A family physician, Dr. Mark Backman of Fidalgo Medical Associates in Anacortes has recommended such services as acupuncture, massage, and chiropractic care for his patients. "It’s pretty simple in my mind, if something works—especially if somebody can offer something that a patient is more enthusiastic about or that gets better results than anything I might be able to offer--why wouldn’t any medical doctor be open to that? And I think more and more physicians look at things that way, as they should."

Integration has even reached the Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle, where Dr. Anjana Kundu, a pain specialist trained in anesthesiology and acupuncture, leads the Complementary and Integrative Medicine Program. The program helps parents include complementary medicine in their child’s care.

Backman feels that the move to integration has largely been driven by patients who have an interest in trying a different approach. "The nice thing is that I think both patients and medical physicians are more comfortable talking about it. Probably what happened 20 years ago is patients would seek out other care and be hesitant to talk to us about it," he says.

In Washington, naturopathic doctors are granted limited prescribing authority, and Cowan and Antonich take advantage of that ability which allows them to have an integrated approach to medicine within their own practice. "Our treatment options are focused on diet, lifestyle, vitamins, and herbs, first, and then antibiotics and other prescriptions when needed," says Antonich.

Having recently outgrown their original space and moved to larger quarters, Antonich and Cowan feel that Mount Vernon has been a particularly good place to practice holistic and integrated medicine. "We’ve been here almost six years and our practice has been very well received from not only by the community, but the standard medical practice. And they’ve welcomed it, for the most part, with open arms and appreciate the service that we can provide for their patients," says Cowan.

Both believe that the Washington law (passed in 1996) which requires health plans to cover every category of licensed provider, has also helped their business. Antonich estimates that roughly 70-80 percent of their patients are covered by insurance. "The big insurance carriers actually cover us quite well," she says. Regence BlueShield, in fact, lists them as primary care physicians. "So they don’t really see us any different than a medical doctor or nurse practitioner," Cowan says.

Although most of Thornton’s Bella Soul employees are now listed with American WholeHealth, she says the initial process of signing up with an insurance provider was difficult because many of them had full networks. Still, it was a process she wanted to undertake. "It sets us in a more professional standing with a lot of doctors and chiropractors," she says. It is also standard procedure at Bella Soul to do a progress report for referring doctors or chiropractors that lists the client’s initial intake data, symptoms, findings, progress, and goals for the future.

Nancy Clark wants more integration with medical professionals. "It’s challenging to find the open doors," she says, acknowledging that Bowenwork is still relatively unknown and it will take time for her work to become more integrated. So, for now she is focusing on education, such as hosting workshops at Skagit Valley Food Co-op and developing a network of Bowenwork practitioners by initiating a local chapter of American Association of Bowenwork—the first in the United States.

Through the Washington State Chiropractic Association, Barone is assisting with the development of presentations for medical doctors about the science of chiropractic care. "The last five years my goal has really been to get out and talk to more medical doctors and give them the information. The profession as a whole has been doing that and I’m jumping on board," he says.

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