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When Julie Diermeir’s 8-year-old son Drew was diagnosed with asthma last year, she worried that its treatment would follow him for a lifetime.

He was prescribed a daily medication while still a second-grader at Eagle Bluff Elementary School in Onalaska. Doctors said he would need to carry an emergency inhaler for the rest of his life.

Although she compliments the treatment Drew receives at the Franciscan Skemp Medical Center, Julie decided to look at other options.

“There has to be some other way than just drugs,” Julie said. “The traditional Western medicine (doesn’t) subscribe to necessarily solving the problem. They subscribe to covering the problem, and I just didn’t want my 8-year-old son to be on steroids.”

So Julie turned to Dr. Bee Lo, a certified naturopathic medical doctor with a practice in Onalaska. As an adherent to holistic medicine — sometimes dubbed “natural” or “alternative” medicine — Lo says that he aims to cure the cause of an illness, not just treat its symptoms.

In Drew’s case, this means eliminating the boy’s allergies to pollen and dander and dust through a technique known as Nambudripad Allergy Elimination Technique, a field of holistic medicine with roots in acupressure, applied kinesiology and traditional Chinese medicine.

Since beginning the treatments in January, Julie said she’s noticed a change in her son’s health. “His allergies are just gone,” she said.

NAET is just one practice that falls under the umbrella term of holistic health. Others would include acupuncture, tai chi, herbal medicine, hydrotherapy, Reiki, toning, aromatherapy and yoga.

Defined briefly, holistic medicine is a philosophy that views a person’s physical, mental and spiritual health as interconnected and considers that relationship when promoting wellness.

Although holistic medicine has roots in Eastern culture, it has taken hold in the United States within the past three decades. The practice is most prevalent in urban areas and along the West and East coasts, but it has recently spread into the Coulee Region. Gundersen Lutheran and Franciscan Skemp medical centers now offer holistic health treatments in addition to private practitioners.

In many ways holistic treatments cannot be tested in the same manner as evidence-based Western medicine, leading some health professionals — and many other Americans — to dismiss some alternative medical techniques as quackery.

According to Lo, this amounts to a “brainwash” campaign by the American Medical Association and other Western medical organizations that prioritize standardized medical practices, prescription drugs and lifelong treatments. Today most health insurance policies will cover hospital stays and medications but not holistic treatments.

“Natural medicine has always existed. It’s just that we are small,” said Lo, who runs the Natural Health Center in Onalaska. “We have our own followers. We see people that seek us. We don’t advertise huge and try what the medical system is doing.”

Dr. Nedira Haik, an integrative medical specialist with Franciscan Skemp’s year-old Center for Health and Healing in Onalaska, might disagree with some of Lo’s characterizations.

Western and Eastern medicine can work in tandem, Haik said. As a doctor of integrative medicine, she looks at a patient’s “mind and spirit” when trying to treat health problems and may recommend nutritional, lifestyle or environmental changes in lieu of prescriptions. She can also schedule patients with Franciscan Skemp’s staff acupuncturist or massage therapists or direct them to supplements that are sold in the clinic’s pharmacy.

“I cannot say that (Western and holistic medicine are) fundamentally different, because a lot of what defines integrative medicine is a very similar definition for really good primary or general care where you’re looking at the whole person,” Haik said.

Prior to opening in September of 2006, Franciscan Skemp spent nearly a decade developing plans for the Center for Health and Healing. In the same timeframe, Western scientists were conducting experiments that seemed to prove the effectiveness of many holistic treatments. For example, many scientists now agree that localized pricks of an acupuncture needle will release specific chemicals like serotonin, dopamine or epinephrine that help heal the body.

Fusheng “Frank” Lan, an Onalaska resident, spent almost five years studying acupuncture while a medical student in China. There, Western medicine is taught and practiced hand-in-hand with traditional Chinese medicine — known as TCM, a field with a 4,000-year history.

TCM is based on the theory that the workings of the human body are interrelated and interact with the outside environment. Acupuncture, for example, works on the theory that energy, sometimes called “chi,” flows through the human body and can be knocked out of balance by sickness. Through years of observation, pressure points were identified as having a direct correlation to other parts of the body.

The most unique aspect of TCM, Lan said, is how its treatment is personalized to the patient. A traditional doctor examines a patient’s full body and considers all symptoms before developing a treatment aimed at curing the source of an illness or pain.

“There (are) some things, really, that this alternative medicine can do, and it can do it better than Western (medicine),” said Lan, who works as a cancer researcher at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., but runs an acupuncture and acupressure practice out of his home.

“Here people are more impatient. We want to get rid of (symptoms) immediately after taking the medicine but don’t think a pain killer has some side effects, and probably you can get something else like damage to the kidney or liver.”

For the past seven years, Herbal Healings has offered a variety of holistic health practices — aromatherapy, massage, body wraps, herbal teas and other natural treatments — from its store in downtown La Crosse.

Owner Victoria Potaracke said her business “is doing quite well” and has customers from all over the area who come to the store after growing tired of their doctors or prescription medicines. She said her customers range from stroke victims to cancer patients to students who need help concentrating on schoolwork. Most pay for their goods and services out-of-pocket since holistic treatments are rarely covered by insurance.

“With Western medicine it’s either surgery or drugs or they can’t help you at all,” Potaracke said. “I wish there was more of an open flow between alternative health care and Western medicine (because) if there was more of an open door some doctors would be very open to it.”

Although Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center does not have a department devoted exclusively to holistic health, some of its physicians practice mind/body healing techniques.

Dr. Gene Kolaczkowski, a psychotherapist with Gundersen Lutheran, uses a peripheral bio-feedback machine to get patients to control their own symptoms. Based on similar properties as a mood ring, the biofeedback machine measures a patient’s fingertip temperature, muscle tension and breath rate to display measures of internal health on a computer screen. Kolaczkowski would then teach a patient breathing exercises and calming techniques to lower their own internal stress.

While he combines bio-feedback work with traditional Western medicine, Kolaczkowski said the mental exercises allow patients to control anxiety, headaches, digestive problems and other ailments. Ultimately, Kolaczkowski said he expects holistic treatments to be a common element in most Americans’ health regimens.

“I think there’s so much in the news about the amount of medicine that we take as a society, and parents of young children are especially concerned about that,” Kolaczkowski said. “So if there’s anything that might be beneficial other than taking a pill or taking medicine, I think a lot of parents are going to want to pursue that.”