Grgranny,
I can certainly understand your daughter's reluctance to go to regular doctors. After all, they haven't even given her a diagnosis she can believe or any hope of treatment that will help. I also believe she shouldn't cut them completely out. After years of feeling like crap, I finally got an accurate diagnosis, that I had a kidney disorder. If I had completely given up on the regular medicos, I wouldn't have gotten that validation.
Of course, getting an accurate diagnosis is only a part of the quest. I have come to realize that my nephrologist is trying the latest scientifically validated treatments. Even when I wonder why, I will at least check out what he says and most often give it a try. I expect him to change my blood pressure meds when I go in this month. And believe me, I hate to change meds. I figure, I've already gotten used to the ones I'm on and new ones have unknown side effects. Keeping track of all the meds I'm on now and all the meds I was on previously (long term effects, doncha know). I am definitely a "show me" type person and find myself practicing medical self-defense. Sometimes, that means I'll get a doctor or nurse who thinks I'm in a medical field. I tell them it is self-defense to know as much as possible about your personal medical issues and the treatments for them.
But alternative medical treatments sometimes become the standard treatments. Just think of all those people who have taken aspirin over the past century. Aspirin came from an old herbal treatment. Eventually, someone isolated aspirin and we've been using it every since, even when the occasional study raises questions about it. Now, many of us take it proactively to lessen our chances of heart attack and stroke. And we don't even know for sure how aspirin works!
What seems the most sad to me is the fact that your daughter has such limited options. Allergic reactions limit her diet and other things she could be doing that could help her health. Even the Dr. Weills advocate some of the same things: diet and exercise. Kinda hard to use diet when what she can tolerate is so limited.
I'm glad your family tries to be supportive, even when they wonder about their sister and worry about their mother. None of this is simple or straightforward. And everyone has mixed feelings about these things. I just wish more people could be more tolerant about how other people feel and think and try to make their lives more livable. In my family, my sister has a "thing" about psychiatric medications. She was horrified that I was put on Prozac. Guess she figured I'd become a serial killer or something. Her reluctance partly came from the fact that her husband is an alcoholic and does AA. AA doesn't seem real supportive about the psychiatric medications. Her husband suffered needlessly from a long depression before he actually sought anti-depressive treatment. Just goes to show that people can change their minds when something affects them personally. It's that "walk in another's shoes" phenomenon.
Anyway, hang in there and do what you feel is right.
