Natural Doctor

[brian3131]

I have a previous post on here, talking about my panic attacks, and all my health.

So yesterday I saw new doctor. She practices both western and natural medicine. I was with her for three hours, she was very intelligent, and I could tell she knew what she was talking about. She hooked me up to a machine, and I was on it throughout the whole appointment. I thought it was cool because it was telling her things that seemed useful, and that traditional medicine could not tell me. It all made sense to me. She was very optimistic that I can be panic free within a year, because my vitamins and allergies were bad. The machine picked up on a lot of issues that I have that I didn't even tell her.

However, when I got home, I did some research on the machine, just to see success stories. As I kept reading, I saw that a lot of people feel that the machine, the QXCI QUANTUM XRROID. Just Googling it brought me to tears. I thought I was finally going to be panic free, and have my life back, after suffering 20 years with panic. I am 23.

What do you guys think about this?

Thanks!

[Paxiled]

I know nothing about this machine.  It's not biofeedback, however.  Biofeedback is like a lie detector (polygraph), which just tells you if your pulse goes up or body temperature.  For example, for migraines, a biofeedback machine measures the temperature of your extremities, usually your hands, because migraines are caused by a constriction of the blood vessels at the extremities which pushes all the blood to your brain, causing a horrible headache.  By using the machine you can learn to control the temperature of your hands by relaxing, thus evening out the blood flow.  That's biofeedback.  This machine is claimed to be able to tell everything about you, including if you have a hidden virus, but how would it do this?  And by what mechanism is it administering any therapy -- is it sending electric pulses to your neurotransmitters, or to anywhere?  Hardly likely.  This sounds like pure quackery.  Now, I don't agree with Nursegirl that anxiety can't be eliminated -- while for some it's episodic, others have found cures, and some believe that the use of the drugs we take for this alters the brain and is responsible for turning the condition into a recurrent one -- this isn't fact, but there is much current research heading in that direction.  But that doesn't happen to everyone, just to some, which is why medicine in general is so maddening -- doctors are trained in general theories, but then they meet individuals who don't act like the general model and doctors are stumped because they weren't trained to see people as individuals but as scientific generalizations.  Now, while this machine sounds pretty dubious to me, that doesn't mean you can't find help in the natural world, but it is harder than popping a magic pill.  But I'd personally find a different practitioner who doesn't rely on magic devices that can't be explained in any rational way as to just how it does what's claimed.  But here's something else -- despite these odd devices you sometimes see -- I saw a naturopath once who used some kind of wand to determine what supplements to give me -- the fact is, the supplements used are often pretty much what any herbalist would use -- in other words, the actual treatment doesn't really differ much from what you'd get without the weird devices.  But this person is claiming the machine will magically do this for you, and I don't see how it can except through placebo medicine, which is the best medicine of all since it doesn't have side effects but it also doesn't last and it won't work for you now that you've become skeptical of the treatment.  People for millennia have been made to feel better by someone waving feathers over them because they believed it would work and that belief caused a change in neurological patterns, which is what an anxiety sufferer is looking for, but plant remedies work just like drugs, just not as strong -- most drugs were developed from plants, in fact.  So as I say, if you want to keep trying this person, maybe you'll end up with the same treatment you'd get from any naturopath or herbalist, or maybe you'll just end up paying a lot of money for seeing the Wizard of Oz with a phony machine.  

[nursegirl6572]

Hello and welcome back!

I have no experience with what you're talking about.  Sounds a little "quackish" to me, but I honestly don't know.  I DO know someone who is very knowledgeable about these kinds of things, Paxiled.  He would be able to both give you some input on your experience today and also some suggestions of how to best handle anxiety treatment from a more "natural" approach.

The one thing I don't like for sure is her claim to have you panic free within a year.  Did she mean forever?  If so, I take issue with that, mostly because anxiety disorders are chronic conditions, it very much cycles up and down.  Typically, for the vast majority of us sufferers, there's no "forever cure".

Hang in there!

I'll send Paxiled a message for you to add his two cents.  He's such a great resource person for these topics.