Problem with a controversial therapy

[Evo-chan]

Hello, everyone.

I am going through some personal issues as of late. My mother takes me to go see this chinese "doctor" every week, to be tested and treated for particular allergies. I am given a small glass tube of a substance to hold in my palm while he presses down on each of my organs to see if the left arm shows weakness. When a weakness is found,  I am flipped over on my back to be massaged with the tube still in my hand, and am told to avoid eating or coming in contact with substance X for 24 hours while the senitivity is supposidly cleared out. This is called the NAET treatment, by the way.

My problem with it is that I am entirely sick of going. I  don't believe in it, don't enjoy the poking and rubbing of my body, and I don't like getting into arguments with my mom over it. I feel that she doesn't really care about my feelings toward it and the "doctor", and just drags me along despite my continuous refusals. And just today, before she left, I got into another bad argument about it with her, and she says that she doesn't want to speak with my anymore, and I am afraid about what else she is planning to do to punish me when she returns.

Has anyone else heard of this treatment? How did you feel? How should I talk to my mom about this, so that she listens to me, so that she understands, and doesnt get angry at me?

[Anonymous]

I have never herd of it; it sounds goofy; but if you find it works - Please post back and let me know!!!

[Deborah]

I sought the least invasive methods of health care for my kids. Perhaps they didn't mind because they grew up with it. We treated most things at home with the guidance of a naturopath. I practiced prevention so fortunately they didn't require much 'medical' attention, and they were the healthiest kids of their peers. They weren't plagued with allergies, colds, viruses, flu like the others. I adopted the philosophy: The best defense is a good offense and focused on good nutrition to build a healthy immune system. Our bodies are really quiet remarkable healing machines if we give them what they needs to work properly.

I don't have experience with NAET, but I do have some experience with kinesiology. I was skeptical. Reading or hearing testimonials didn't convince me- I had to conduct my own experiment. It happened that a friend of mine was a practioner, so I wrote down some questions for her to ask my daughter who was to be the subject in my experiment. They were things that I knew the answers to, but my friend did not. Some of the questions my daughter didn't even know the answer to. My friend would read the question to herself, not aloud, and test my daughter for the yes/no answer. After each test I'd read the question out loud to my daughter. No exaggeration, it was 100% accurate. My daughter was even blown away. Like anything, there is the potential for error, especially if the question is not phrased correctly, or the practioner is lame or has there own agenda.

If you were my daughter and I was convinced that it was the most effective and least invasive with no side-effects, I would want to explore with you what exactly it was that you didn't like about it. How long did the dr say it would take to see improvement? Have you had any improvement? Are you willing to stick it out for the recommended length of time? Have you compared the method with traditonal allergy treatment?  Do you not like being touched in general, or by this particular dr? Might you be more comfortable with a different dr?

As I was writing it ocurred to me that you probably weren't allowed to participate in the decision making. I'm wondering if that is what you are most upset about?

If I were in your situation, I'd do some research on my options. Show the research to my mom and tell her which method of treatment I prefered, and hope she would honor my request. Short of that, I guess you're stuck with the NAET doc. If that's the case, I'm sorry you aren't allowed to be more involved in choices that concern you.
Hope it goes well.

[Anonymous]

If you go to public school, talk to your school counselor about it.  If you make it clear you don't agree with this particular alternative treatment, and that you want to be able to refuse for this practitioner who is *NOT* a doctor to touch you, you may find that the counselor can interceed for you.  It also puts some constraint on your mom since the counselor is probably a mandatory reporter as far as child abuse goes.

It doesn't sound like you're in actual danger, or being abused or neglected even though you *are* uncomfortable.  That is, as long as the practitioner is not touching your private parts or touching other parts of you in a sexual way.

What I told my daughter tonight, and why's a long story, is that it's always okay to bring another adult's mature judgement into the situation.

So if you don't feel safe, talking to the school counselor and bringing another adult's mature judgement into the situation may not get you out of doing something you don't want to do, but it should provide a reassuring safeguard to keep your mom from crossing the line.

And I wouldn't recommend that *except* that I think that ignoring a kid's desire not to be touched by some particular person who is not an MD is treading *very* close to the line.  Not necessarily over it, but it shows questionable judgement.  If you aren't sure whether or not you're safe, bringing another mature adult into the situation---and an adult with relevant training and some actual legal power and responsibility to intervene if things get worse to the point that you become unsafe, would probably be your best bet.

There are alternative treatments that are very well established as effective for some things.  Chiropractic or acupuncture, for example, or certain herbal remedies.  There are alternative treatments that can be actually harmful---forex all the yuppies who got liver damage from taking Comfrey in large daily doses, internally.  There are alternative treatments that are stuff and nonsense.  I'm not going to make a blanket judgement on this particular alternative treatment.

All I can suggest is bring another mature adult's judgement in if you feel unsafe.  If you *don't* feel unsafe, and you aren't being touched in a "creepy" way, it's probably best to just humor your mom.

My very best survival skill in my teenage years was to recognize that my own parents were nice people, but a bit eccentric, and just humoring them until I could get grown and out on my own.

Timoclea

[Nihilanthic]

She's my friend, btw.

Anyway, its controvertial, she's not sick at all, she hates feeling totaly powerless to make a choice to not do this potentially very meaningless treatment, and she does feel violated by it.

The detriment to her mental and emotional wellbeing offsets any intangible physical benefit.