It may be in the food you eat or the air you breathe, and it can
cripple your health without you ever knowing it’s there. According
to an article by Kandace Power Graves in the New Orleans-based
Gambit Weekly, ‘as many as one in five Americans
suffers some kind of food allergies and millions of others have
reactions to insect bites, dust mites, molds, spores, pollens,
dust, and other environmental irritants.’
Graves goes on to explore the role of holistic and alternative
medicine in detecting and treating allergies. While many allergy
victims are all too well aware of their afflictions, several others
never realize that they have allergies at all, even if the symptoms
are severe.
Dr. Robert Fortier-Benson, medical director of the Center for
Functional Medicine in Mississippi, believes that even medical
specialists can sometimes misdiagnose allergic reactions–which
often mimic other conditions. So he practices a more holistic
approach.
The identification and treatment process can be extremely demanding
and intricate, especially for patients with food allergies. But if
patients are willing to work with a variety of different medicines
and approaches, their efforts will often lead to a tighter control
of allergic reactions. For example, one of Fortier-Benson’s
patients completely reversed his ailing health, which had been
burdened by chronic back pain and other debilitating symptoms,
after he discovered an allergy to dairy products.
‘By using a multi-level approach to medicine,’ says Fortier-Benson,
‘you can use the best of both worlds: conventional and alternative
medicine. It takes both. I don’t make judgements about which one is
better. I just use what works best for the patient at the time.
That’s good medicine.’
–Jeremy Swanson
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