I was a dancer who became totally paralyzed from Guillain/Barre Syndrome twelve years ago. It was a devastating experience, both physically and emotionally. When traditional, mainstream medicine couldn’t help me, alternative therapy did.

It was very early on a lovely spring morning when I awoke and, as I tried to get up, found that I couldn’t move. Not a muscle. By the time I was taken to the emergency room of a local hospital, I was completely paralyzed from head to toe. The only thing I could move was my tongue. I could speak, but just barely. I was frightened, yet I continued to believe that, somehow, I would soon snap out of it. After a series of examinations by various doctors, I was given a preliminary diagnosis of Guillain/Barre Syndrome, which was confirmed by a spinal tap.

I had never heard of Guillain/Barre Syndrome. The doctor explained that it was an ascending paralysis that usually begins in the feet and hands and travels up so that it may eventually paralyze my entire body, which, in my case, it had. It is not unusual for the lungs to become paralyzed, making it necessary for the patient to go on a ventilator. When I asked the neurologist how soon I would be well, he looked into my barely opened, unfocused eyes and said, "Months, perhaps years."

Months! Years!?! "But, I’m a dancer!" I screamed. I saw tears in my doctor’s eyes, tears in my family’s eyes. This prognosis would be devastating to anyone, but I had been a dancer for a lifetime. It was all I knew, my "path of bliss." I had traveled all over the country dancing in musical comedies, television, and nightclubs. At the time I became paralyzed, I was still dancing and the assistant artistic director and choreographer for a local ballet company. My whole life had always been wrapped up in my dancing. Now here I was, in the hospital, completely paralyzed yet in excruciating pain, unable to focus my eyes, and completely dependent on others to care for all my needs.

This couldn’t be happening to me! It must be a bad dream. Through my tears, I prayed that I would awaken from this nightmare. But it was no nightmare, and I was to remain completely paralyzed for a long time. I couldn’t scratch my nose when it itched, I couldn’t reach out and hold my loved ones, and I couldn’t even wipe my tears away.

I went through a long, bleak period of not knowing who I was or what I was going to do with the rest of my life. It was a crisis of enormous proportions. Even now, 12 years later, I don’t know which was harder, being paralyzed in my body or my soul. I was in a wheelchair for over two years, and then began using a walker and double upright metal braces. The internists, neurologists, orthopedists, and rheumatologists could do nothing more than tell me that I would probably progress no further. As the years went on, I had very little improvement, although I continued to try, on my own, to retrain my muscles. I devised my own exercise program, but I needed something or someone else to help me. I knew deep inside that I could do more, I just didn’t know how to go about it or whom to enlist for help. I kept looking and hoping for an answer.

Several years later, I found myself in a chiropractor’s office. Besides chiropractic, she also uses applied kinesiology, nutrition, homeopathy, neuro-emotional technique, acupressure, and much more. After muscle testing me, she confirmed my inner feeling that I could progress more. Gently, but firmly, she taught me that our minds and bodies are really one and must be treated as such. Within the first two months on her program of proper nutrition, exercise, and rest, I noticed 20 major changes, the most important one being a huge increase in my energy level.

I also learned that our energy can become blocked, physically, emotionally, and chemically, and that it’s possible to "unblock" it through simple processes such as not eating sugar, exercising, and drinking plenty of water. When our energy is blocked, we have dis-ease. I am now almost completely free of pain on a daily basis, the tingling sensation has nearly disappeared, my metabolism is back to normal, as is my circulation, and I need only one small ankle brace to walk, which I expect to be rid of soon.

I firmly believe that we must take responsibility for our own health. When traditional treatment holds out little or no hope, look to alternative methods. If you know in your heart that you can improve, keep that goal in front of you and never give up.

by Judith Britten