For too long conventional and natural medicine have functioned almost completely independently, unfortunately often competing.  Effective medicine cooperates and collaborates according to each professional’s strengths. Humility cannot be overestimated when serving the public's health needs. The body needs natural substances to heal. Conventional medicine does not offer this; it does get you out of an emergency, identify certain conditions to increase your understanding, and help you to manage symptoms. Integrative medicine provides a framework for understanding the entire person and treatment options that can support the body’s healing process, resolve underlying causal stressors while raising or maintaining health. 

Allopathic Medicine

The common medical approach (allopathy) in the US is not an integrated system. Allopathic doctors are trained primarily in areas of specialization, the strengths of which are precision and deep knowledge of specific function of given area. Specialization, however, lacks an organizing principle that focuses care on the entire person and the effects– potentially negative– one specialized treatment may have on the rest of the body/being’s function. If there isn't a standard of care that includes constant communication among specialists (which there rarely is) then you could approach five different specialists with a single problem and likely get five different diagnoses while lacking any treatment or procedure capable of resolving the underlying issue at a casual/core level.  Specialization limits allopathy in its ability to effectively deal with chronic conditions since it cannot address the needs of the entire system simultaneously and yet, it is the vast majority of medical care we seek. 

There is a massive cultural discontent, between the capabilities of the current medical model and what we understand it to be, and because of this, we are seeing increasing numbers of healthcare injuries, complications and fatalities. Pharmaceuticals, for example, were never intended for long-term use, because they block essential enzymatic activity in the body. This explains why we are often more sick, confused, and even worse-off after conventional medical interventions that were aimed at dealing with chronic conditions. 

Medicine is changing.  The status quo is no longer acceptable. A 2016 study from John’s Hopkins find that preventable medical error is the #3 killer in the US.  It is also established that stress is the causal factor for disease over 90% of the time.  For the first time in recent history average people are looking beyond conventional medicine to see how they can compliment or completely alter their current healthcare. Allopathic medicine is best used in emergency situations where health is rapidly eroding and stabilization measures may need to be taken. Once stabilized, resuming with integrative medicine most effectively supports the recovery process in intelligent, progressive and effective ways. 

Natural / BioEnergetic / Integrative Medicines

Integrative Medicine combines different effective and intelligent medical or healing approaches to attain a broad sense of well-being and healthy function.  Integrative Medicine’s primary strength is it's ability to identify and resolve underlying stressors (including those fueling chronic conditions) and restore resources required to activate the body’s natural ability to heal. Integrative medicine contains an organizing model that includes the entire body.  The purpose is to naturally fortify what is healthy at the electrical level, beneath conscious recognition, of the human body in order to optimize function.  Where weakness exists, it seeks to rebuild the body’s electrical function by removing disruptions or blockages in the flow system thereby improving biochemistry, vitality and capacity for raising one's level of health. 

The term BioEnergetic Medicine (BEM), is less commonly known and comes from the conceptual integration of biological processes and the electrical impulses that govern them.  The focus is on the interface of the electrical body uniting with biology is very unique and pioneering work, however it is not new; the history of BEM easily dates back a century. BEM Assessment determines whether the BioElectric Field (BEF), or simply, "the field", is regulating properly. In fact, the body and its BEF are bio regulatory systems, meaning they are designed to heal and self-regulate in order to maintain ideal health and function whenever possible.  The electrical body or the field, not unlike the DNA of a cell, acts as a control panel that regulates to maintain ideal function, strength, and repair of the biology, as well as the mental, spiritual and emotional aspects of the human being. BEM seeks to look at all aspects of health, inventory stressors correctly and remediate the effects based on objective, electrically accurate data. With BEM we can affect and assess all aspects of health and all health care concerns. 

BioEnergetic Medicine is a scientifically validated, progressive, integrative model that works with the design of the body.  It is the future of medicine and has its roots in aspects of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and the German model of medicine, among others. BioEnergetic Medicine integrates the biology and subatomic electrical charge at the cellular level to access the body’s natural communication system. In other words, we look at the chemical aspects of the body as well as its corresponding energetic partners. The body is designed to heal and can identify the exact remedies for stress resolution at a causal level beneath symptoms and diagnosis. 

BioEnergetic Assessment is a compliment to all medical practices.  A core, organizing principle or philosophy of medicine is missing in standard medical care today in the USA; this is the weakness of the overemphasis of modern medical specialization.  I believe the genuine medicine for today is based on a intelligent, integrated model that understands and includes the design of the body and how it heals.

BioEnergetic Medicine (BEM) allows one to view any healthcare need with a new lens and focus.  It allows a more keen understanding of how health can deteriorate, how it can be realigned and even restored. As a professional, BEM has changed how I understand disease and how health can be reestablished.

It is important to address the fact that natural medicine is not a federally regulated industry like allopathic medicine. This is both a strength and a weakness. Regulation would make the industry vulnerable to the same issues the current medial system is experiencing like sky-rocketing costs, special interests influencing health care decisions, and limited consultation time and access to treatment modalities. Without such constraints, natural health practitioners are able to devote their studies and practices to serve the body as a whole rather than a system specific approach which can limit results. That being said, because it isn’t a licensed industry, it tends to have a lot less consumer confidence on both the service and product levels. If you are a licensed doctor, for example, you are by default credible. As a result, there tends to be an unnecessary competitive undercurrent which leads to a lot of self-appointed gurus heavily marketing their products for profit as the “next great thing”. On a product level, because terms like “natural” are virtually unregulated and can mean many things, consumers are left with the uncertainty of the quality of products. 

Tips for Navigating Integrative Medicine

• Importance of accurate test results: To get as well as possible as quickly as possible starts with gaining accurate test results. Many factors ranging from the skill and training of the practitioner to your emotional and physical conditions my contribute to inaccurate test results. For example, if you are feeling scared, forced, or have a lack of trust or confidence in your practitioner or the process, these feelings will affect your results. Similarly, if you are dehydrated or have sludge in the ECM (Extracellular matrix) and your ANS is a mess, this will also lead to inaccurate test results. A body out of balance will also produce inaccurate results; the equivalent of a bunny trail.  Stress in these areas skew results to the point that I would consider them useless and therefore a poor investment of your resources.  You have tremendous control over the outcome of your healthcare journey if you keep these key concepts in mind to ensure your testability. 
• Seek reputable practitioners: Ensure you seek a reputable practitioner, through personal referral, who has extensive training, and attends to all the details of this complex art-form. Verifying polarity before testing, for example, is a key factor an unexperienced practitioner may miss. A quality practitioner also respects the time, money and confidence you are investing by creating the most value for you. 
• Seek certified practitioners: Seek practitioners who have achieved certification through national professional organizations established to create standards for professionalism and a code of ethics, such as: the Board of Advanced Natural Health Sciences (BANHS) and the American Association of Drugless Practitioners (AADP).
• Where & how to shop for supplements: When shopping for health supplements, a good rule of thumb is to avoid any store that has a pharmacy. Remember that “natural” has no regulation for quality control, and should not be understood as “bioavailable” (aka absorbable). When at all possible, buy your supplements from a practitioner who sells professional-grade products free of excipients. 
• Engage before you get sick: To get the most out of Integrative Medicine, think beyond “Green Allopathy”. If you are looking to manage your symptoms via natural means, a holistic health practitioner can certainly connect you with quality supplements. But the real value in integrative medicine is in raising one’s level of health before it manifests into diagnoses. Technologies and modalities of BioEnergetic Specialists are pre-diagnostic in nature and focus on conducting pre-pathology examinations to determine where stress is in the body and the field before it manifests on a physical level in the form of a disease process or diagnosis. 

Bridging Allopathic and Natural Modalities

A new integrated paradigm is necessary to adequately and holistically serve the epidemic of healthcare failure we are facing today.  New options are required to deal with the unprecedented toxic burden and stress levels inherent now undermining health and leading to skyrocketing levels of healthcare costs and incidence of disease.  Never before has it been so urgent to activate the body's innate healing ability, reverse casual factors and invest in regenerative, organized technologies.  Simply managing symptoms and dealing with side effects, without correcting the underlying issue or harnessing the bodies’ amazing ability to heal, is outdated.

A blended model integrating the best of modern medicine’s technology and acute care with BioEnergetic Medicine is massive leap forward because it can treat all healthcare needs effectively.  It offer’s the best of all world’s.  It is an accessible, common sense model that puts the needs of the client first while minimizing costs and adverse affects inherent in the current model.

My professional approach compliments both Western/allopathic and natural modalities.   I am a huge advocate for common sense, self-study and health care freedom.  Self awareness is imperative, so you know your priorities, what questions you have, and what questions to ask.  You need to have enough information to know if your satisfied with the answers you receive from your medical and healthcare team after you ask those all important personal questions. 

Allopathic interventions generally have a cost and a benefit.  The goal is to increase benefits and minimize costs.  The popular medical term for this is “side effects”.  A natural health approach in alignment with a “necessary” allopathic one may reduce stress on the body and therefore the occurrence of side affects, significantly. I have worked beautifully with people undergoing extensive surgical procedures for cancer.  

An individual, came to me exhausted and unaware of why he could not sleep, had very low energy, weight gain and swelling in certain areas of his body.  We did about 12 weeks of intensive work while he was seeking appropriate allopathic medical attention.  A slow-growing cancer was diagnosed.  He chose to undergo the doctor-recommended surgery but by that time was sleeping really well, had lost excess weight, had great energy and color, and had eliminated massive amounts of toxins from his system.  It was a 12-hour procedure and more extensive than originally thought by his medical team however, he recovered beautifully and in record time.  The medical team was impressed with how well the scar healed and how well he felt in the aftermath of such a huge and physically stressful procedure.  Within six weeks he was on a trip overseas to enjoy the training of a lifetime.

About the Author

Cari Wright is a Holistic Health Practitioner based in Two Harbors, MN. She is a wife, a mother of 3 children, a dog, a cat, and a bird. She is a listener and a guide, a reader and a writer, and committed to a life of learning.