Our family’s pediatrician discovered a chiropractor who seems to have magical powers. Patient after patient has reported health improvements after the chiropractor used a technique called NAET (Nambudripad’s Allergy Elimination Techniques). Most people are skeptical. Yet, real people are reporting improvements: one lactose-intolerant person can now eat dairy without any reaction, another person tolerates seasonal changes without hay fever. Voodoo medicine or not, the proof seems to be in the pudding. So I caught up with Dr. Greg Kempf, the Cleveland-based chiropractor and certified NAET practitioner to find out more.
Q: Where do we start?
Kempf: I usually start my spiel with: don’t think Western medicine. You kind of have to put that aside.
Q: My pediatrician said he was skeptical until he saw your results.
Kempf: Right! In the beginning, most MDs look at me like I’m crazy. But it works. You just have to kind of let go of Western medicine. Obviously for MDs, it’s hard because that’s their training.
Q: When did you discover NAET?
Kempf: My nephew has Asperger’s. Someone told my sister about NAET, and she said, “Why not?” So she tried it and couldn’t believe the change in his behavior. She was moving to Cleveland and couldn’t find anyone certified in NAET. To help my nephew, I went to California to learn from Devi Nambudripad who developed the technique.
Q: Walk me through a session. What do chiropractors do?
Kempf: You come to the office, and I have thousands of little vials of different foods and vitamins. You hold the vial labeled with the name of a substance. It could be eggs, vitamin C, chemicals, dairy or pollen, to name a few. You hold it. And then you hold your arm up. I push on your arm, and you try to resist. It’s based on the Chinese concept of Chi.
Q: Chi? What is Chi?
Kempf: Yes. C-H-I. It’s basically energy. When patients hold a particular substance, their nervous system (or electrical system) is reacting to the substance. Basically, your nervous system either thinks this is positive or negative. While you hold the vial, I push on your arm. If your arm becomes weaker, then we know you have a sensitivity. If your arm stays strong, then that substance is not a problem.
Q: What if a patient doesn’t know what he or she is sensitive to?
Kempf: Initially, we check nutritional stuff. So if someone comes in, there are about twenty vials that I go through and check on everybody. I start with egg, vitamin C, vitamin A. The symptom doesn’t matter – eczema, diarrhea, headache, allergies or fatigue – we check for those three first.
Q: How do patients find you?
Kempf: Typically, they’ve been to their doctor, and they are tired of medication or their doctor says nothing is wrong but they still have symptoms. I’ll do testing and the patient is sensitive to sugar or corn or something he’s eating every day that lowers the immune system.
Q: So they’re allergic to these substances?
Kempf: It’s not an allergy per se—that word kind of steers people a little wrong—but there’s some sensitivity to the substance. Your body’s not using it right. I treat the body so it is able to tolerate the substance.
Q: Can you give us an example of how this treatment has helped a teenager?
Kempf: I had a high schooler with horrible abdominal pain and diarrhea who was losing weight and missing school because of accidents. He literally couldn’t make it to the bathroom, it was that bad. He had seen the best GI guy in New York City, and everyone said, “We can’t find anything wrong.” He didn’t believe it would work, but he came with a “what do we have to lose” attitude. I tested him, and he was sensitive to corn, corn sugar and onions. After three or four visits, he was fine.
Q: I’m fascinated. It almost sounds unbelievable.
Kempf: Patients often say, “If it wasn’t me, I wouldn’t believe it.” But it works! It’s crazy. It boils down to changing the nervous system so it’s not reactive, so it’s not sensitive, so you don’t have either that autoimmune response or inflammatory response.
Q: So after NAET, does the patient need to avoid the substance?
Kempf: You can do NAET to where you don’t have to avoid it. I tell people, “Don’t overdo it, but you should be able to have it and not be sick.”
Q: How do parents of teenagers know whether it makes sense to try NAET?
Kempf: NAET can help with symptoms that may be the result of a sensitivity to food or another substance in the environment or in your body. For example, diarrhea, headaches, skin conditions (like eczema), fatigue, allergic reactions. But I don’t recommend that NAET take the place of seeing an MD, especially for patients suffering from a disease. We can’t cure cancer, for example, but we can potentially help you feel better by making you less sensitive to the drugs that are making you feel sick.
Q: Does it work for everyone?
Kempf: Everyone improves some, but many people improve a lot. I wouldn’t turn anyone away.
For more on NAET or to find a practitioner in your area, visit NAET.com. Dr. Kempf can be reached at http://www.arcadechiro.com.
