Three Years of Feeling Sick. She Didn’t Want More Medication. She Found Something Else.
Dr. John Erickson, DC | Laser & Chiropractic Center of the Rockies | Loveland, CO
Case 009 | Series Post #9
Three Years Is a Long Time to Feel Like You Have the Flu
Not the acute kind. The low-grade, persistent kind. The kind where you wake up already behind.
She had felt this way for three years. Not sick enough to be hospitalized. Too sick to feel well. She had been living in the space between those two things for a very long time.
She had tried other approaches. They hadn’t moved the needle. She was also deeply wary of adding more medication to the mix.
A Health-Conscious Woman Who Had Run Out of Road
She was 73. Persistent flu-like symptoms for three years. Not a virus – that had been ruled out. Something chronic and systemic that conventional approaches had not been able to explain or resolve.
She was health-conscious. She had paid attention to what she ate and how she lived. She was concerned about the overuse of medications and antibiotics – had been for years. She wasn’t interested in another prescription.
She came in because she had run out of other options and was willing to try something different.
Testing revealed multiple sensitivities. We began with the foundational Basic 17 NAET protocol and worked systematically through her sensitivities across multiple appointments.
She Noticed a Change Within the First Few Treatments
She came back after the early treatments and told me something had shifted.
She was beginning to notice a change in her health status – an improvement in energy and vitality she hadn’t felt in years. The flu-like symptoms that had been her constant backdrop were beginning to recede.
She continued care. The reports continued. Energy increasing. Symptoms decreasing.
A Body Running on Alert
Assessment revealed sensitivities across multiple allergen categories. What was notable was the breadth of the reactivity – not a single isolated sensitivity, but a systemic pattern of the immune system treating multiple substances as threats.
This kind of sustained immune reactivity carries a cost. The body in a persistent reactive state diverts resources toward that reaction – resources that would otherwise go toward normal function, repair, and energy production. The flu-like symptoms she was experiencing are consistent with what happens when the immune system is chronically activated without resolution.
In NAET, we work through sensitivities systematically. As the reactive burden decreases, the resources the body was using to sustain that reactivity become available for other things.
Patient-Reported: Energy Returning, Symptoms Decreasing
She reported noticing a change in her health status within the first few treatments – earlier than either of us anticipated. She described increased energy and vitality as the treatments continued.
The persistent flu-like symptoms that had characterized her daily experience for three years showed reported improvement over the course of care.
She did not add more medication to her routine.
Chronic Immune Activation Has a Cost the Body Eventually Shows
The nervous and immune systems regulate each other reciprocally. Research published in the Journal of Investigational Allergology and Clinical Immunology has documented that sustained immune activation – particularly the Th2 pattern associated with allergic reactivity – affects energy, sleep, and systemic function in ways that extend far beyond typical allergy symptoms.[1] A body in a chronic reactive state is a body spending energy it doesn’t have.
Research in the Journal of Clinical Investigation confirms that this immune-nervous system communication is bidirectional and cellular-level – neurons and immune cells are physically colocalized, and the signals they exchange directly shape immune responses.[2] Addressing the underlying reactivity pattern changes what the nervous system is telling the immune system to do.
How many people living with persistent, unexplained flu-like symptoms have never had their immune and nervous system reactivity evaluated as a contributing factor?
Some Problems Need a Different Set of Questions
She had been through three years of the same question: what is making me feel this way? The conventional system hadn’t been able to answer it to her satisfaction.
A different approach asked a different question – not what is the pathogen, but what is the immune system reacting to – and found a different kind of answer.
If you have been living with persistent, unexplained symptoms that haven’t responded to conventional care, a sensitivity evaluation may be the question you haven’t asked yet.
— Dr. John Erickson, DC | Laser & Chiropractic Center of the Rockies | Loveland, Colorado
To learn more about NAET at Laser & Chiropractic Center of the Rockies, visit laserchirorockies.com or call 970-412-3212.
Individual results vary. This story is de-identified and shared with permission. It represents a reported patient experience and is not a guarantee of outcome. NAET is a complementary wellness approach and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or medical condition.
[1] Montoro, J. et al. “Stress and Allergy.” J Investig Allergol Clin Immunol. 2009;19 Suppl 1:40-47. PMID: 19476053.
[2] Veiga-Fernandes, H. & Artis, D. “Neuro-Immune Crosstalk and Allergic Inflammation.” J Clin Invest. 2019;129(4):1475-1482. PMC: PMC6436850. DOI: 10.1172/JCI124609