What Really Works: The Insider’s Guide to Complementary Health. Susan Clark

glucuronidase is present in all parts of the human body, where it is released into the tissues during inflammation or an allergic response – in greater amounts than that given with EPD. With this technique, the dosage used is less than that contained in 1cc of blood from a healthy person, making it entirely safe.

      There are two ways for EPD to be administered. With the cup method, a small area of the forearm is scarified to remove the waterproof layer of the skin, and the desensitising fluid is then held over this area, by means of a plastic cup, for 24 hours. The slow absorption of this dose makes this method extremely safe. Also, the immune system is much more responsive to doses through the skin than those given via injection. That said, the second EPD method is by injection. This is more reliable but may not be quite as safe.

      Desensitising mixtures are now available for a wide range of allergens including pollens, dust, pets, moulds, candida, fumes, fragrances, foods and food additives. With EPD, many common allergens cross-desensitise in groups, which is good news for sufferers, many of whom are allergic to more allergens than they may have identified.

      Over the last 30 years, EPD has been employed successfully to treat asthma, rhinitis, nasal polyps, eczema, urticaria, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, migraine, rheumatoid arthritis, petit mal epilepsy, chemical sensitivity, food allergies and intolerance, as well as the secondary allergies that complicate post-viral syndromes including Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and ME.

      There is still no desensitising agent to treat allergies to insect bites or stings, contact dermatitis or drug-related allergies. Inoculating against the vast and ever-increasing number of chemicals used in the production of food has also proved difficult but common allergies, such as hayfever, can be treated with just one dose given about four months before the usual onset of symptoms.

      Housedust mite allergy, the most common cause of eczema in adults, for example, can be treated with just two doses given over an interval of 2–3 months. It can take up to eight doses to establish a response, after which the frequency of treatment can be reduced. More than 50% of EPD patients have been able to stop any treatment at all for long periods – the longest recorded period without booster doses before a relapse was 21 years.

      The response to EPD is four-fold. There may be an immediate response, or the full benefits may be slow to take. A reaction time of three weeks, during which there is either a ‘cure’ or the production of symptoms, is common. The main action usually starts after this, and lasts for 3–4 months. This is thanks to the immune system’s allergen-fighting lymphocyte cells which have been created by the dose.

      Some patients will have a very late response, from between 18 months and two-and-a-half years, starting from between 7 and 9 doses from the start of treatment.

      A ‘postpone action’ has been recorded where between 6 and 15 months after the last treatment, the patient appears miraculously cured. Such patients have often given up on EPD, which does not work in any event for 20% of sufferers, and then attribute their miracle cure not to that last dose but to some other treatment.

      EPD was developed by a British medical doctor, Dr Leonard McEwen, who has stuck to protocol. Follow-up studies and clinical trials all suggest this technique has much greater long-term success than any other method of immunotherapy. Word of it’s success has spread and there are now clinics and doctors in the US and Italy offering this simple but effective procedure which deserves greater recognition.

       Altitude Sickness

      If you are planning a high altitude trecking holiday, this may be your most serious health risk.

      In it’s most dangerous form, altitude sickness is known as pulmonary oedema. This is the name for what happens when there is a build-up of fluid on the lungs and, make no mistake, it constitutes a serious medical emergency. The symptoms include shortness of breath and disorientation; those most at risk are smokers and anyone with an existing heart problem.

      The secret to avoiding this problem is to acclimatise slowly, says the London-based naturopath and traveller, Max Tomlinson, who has travelled widely in South America and so speaks from experience. Do not rush your trek up the mountain, but enjoy this excuse to take your time and take in the glorious scenery, he suggests. If at any point you feel dizzy or short of breath, make your way back down to a lower altitude.

      Tomlinson suggests that your holistic travel kit should include, as a precaution, two homoeopathic preparations, Aconite 6c and Arsenicum album 6c. Aconite 6c is used to treat the sudden onset of symptoms, including breathlessness, and Arsenicum album 6c should be taken if there is a delay between developing the first symptoms and getting medical treatment. You can take both at the same time and should take one dose, four times a day for up to a maximum of four doses.

      Because there is less oxygen available at higher altitudes, you also need to make sure your iron levels are normal before you travel. Tomlinson recommends you take a liquid supplement called Floradix for a month, starting 14 days before you leave. Gingko biloba has been shown in clinical trials to boost the amount of oxygen and other nutrients reaching the brain, and thereis now good evidence that this too will help. Again, start 14 days before your departure date and take 20 drops of an organic tincture of the herb, three times a day.

      There is also good anecdotal evidence for a homoeopathic remedy called Coca, which comes from the leaves of the cocaine plant. This will fall into place when you learn that those living in the region you plan to visit chew the same leaves for altitude sickness. The theory is that the active ingredient boosts the circulation of blood and oxygen to the brain.

       Amalgam Fillings

      More than a decade after scientists first began to question the sense of using mercury amalgam fillings, people with metal in their mouths are still not sure whether to leave their fillings in place or have them taken out. The simple answer is – unless you have an underlying sickness which may be linked with mercury poisoning – leave them in place until you need to have them replaced and then, whatever you do, don’t let your dentist put such a toxic metal back in your mouth.

      The silver fillings which have divided dentists for more than 15 years are not silver at all but are an amalgam made up of 52% mercury (older fillings contained as much as 75% mercury) with the remainder copper, tin, silver and zinc. Mercury, which the dentist must treat as toxic waste outside your mouth, is the second most toxic metal on the planet after plutonium and yet governments around the world – with the exception of Sweden and Austria – still deem it safe for fillings.

      In Germany, amalgam fillings are only used for the molars, which are the back grinding teeth but in the UK, for example, the National Health Service will not pay for the more expensive white composite fillings, which means that although the figures for amalgam fillings have halved since 1986, British dentists are still putting 15 million metal fillings in the mouths of adults and children every year.

      For a long time, the party line in both the UK and the US was that once the amalgam was in the mouth, the mercury became inert or locked in, and so was safe. Numerous researchers have shown this to be untrue, and practitioners do now accept that mercury vapour is indeed released into the body from these fillings. The current argument is that this seepage happens in such negligible amounts that the risk to your health is insignificant, although an estimated 3% of adults will be hypersensitive to this and will have an adverse reaction. Ironically, cleaning your teeth or chewing a ‘whitening’ gum actually makes the problem worse because it accelerates the rate at which vapour is released by a factor of five. Hot drinks increase the vapour concentration too.

      Harley Street dentist and president of the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology, Dr Anthony Newbury, reckons he was the first UK-based dentist to introduce the idea of a mercury-free practice in 1979, after attending a lecture in the US where mercury seepage from fillings was linked, controversially, to chronic muscle and joint problems, fatigue and jaw complaints. He is a major presence on the international lecture circuit and says fellow dentists still accuse him of talking baloney.

       ‘My response to the suggestion that the mercury vapour comes off in such small amounts that it is harmless is to say try changing it for cyanide, which is less toxic, and see how long you’ll