Photo by Richard A. Huston
July 2004
Natural Force
Controlling HIV is no small issue. Integrative medicine can come up big in leading a full life
by Joe Follansbee
Joel Davis dominates his HIV as if it were the dust in his Seattle apartment. Nothing smudges the green carpet or red couch in the main room. Books, CDs and photos assemble in good order on dark wooden shelves. Only the desk with its lime green iMac hints at any disarray.
Dust exists, but not in naked-eye sight, like the HIV in the corners of his body where his medications can’t completely reach. Davis, like the best housekeepers, attacks the dust and his HIV with every tool at hand, conventional, unconventional and certainly spiritual.
“I do a lot of stuff,” Davis says. “I don’t know how each thing helps. But I do know they’re all contributing to my health.”
Among other treatments that Davis incorporates into his daily routine of pills are acupuncture and less common “peat” baths that employ peat moss to pull toxins from the body.
Davis and as many as 950,000 other Americans live with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which attacks the body’s system for fighting disease, causing acquired immunodeficiency syndrome or AIDS. Davis falls into a category of people who test positive for the virus that causes AIDS, but they have no AIDS symptoms. Davis uses standard antiviral drugs, which drive down the amount of virus in his body to almost undetectable levels. But there is no known way to kill all his HIV.
Seventy percent of the 700,000 Americans who know they have the virus, including Davis, try unconventional therapies to battle HIV. These methods, called “complementary,” “alternative” or “integrative” medicine depending on who’s doing the describing, encompass health treatments and philosophies outside conventional medical practice.
These therapies include Indian Ayurveda, Chinese and Japanese acupuncture, Native American healing, chiropractic, massage, yoga, homeopathy, naturopathy, meditation and herbal food supplements. Integrative therapies often stimulate or support the body’s own defenses against illness. HIV and AIDS patients use complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) to manage the symptoms of AIDS, such as pain and/or the side effects of HIV drugs.
Mistrust in HIV drugs
A few people with HIV rely exclusively on alternative treatments to fight the virus. They don’t trust “Western” approaches to disease.
“Some people are scared to use HIV/AIDS medications,” says Nicole Sievers, a registered dietician at the Seattle-based Lifelong AIDS Alliance. But most people, such as Davis, use CAM as an extra-turned-essential strategy to manage the impact of HIV on their lives.
Sievers says people with HIV/AIDS should get help from mainstream doctors and complementary/alternative practitioners: “I think it’s important to see both to get a balanced perspective.”
Davis says he believes he acquired the virus in his late 20s, around 1983. He tested positive for HIV in 1989. His doctor put him on AZT, the first effective drug for treating HIV. Davis has taken AZT continuously for more than 15 years. He tried new HIV drugs as they came along, and he’s now in a regimen called “combination therapy.” He takes three tablets twice a day that include AZT and other antiviral medications.
Davis reports feeling healthy and looks it. He is 50, trim and tan with a clipped salt-and-pepper mustache that droops over the corners of his mouth. He visits his medical doctor every six months. His doctor tests him for the amount of active virus in his blood and the strength of his viral immunity.
“The goal for me is stability and maintenance,” he says.
Testament to Davis’ success and insistence on complementary and alternative treatments: He hasn’t changed his medications in eight years.
“That’s a very long time,” he says.
Ahead of the curve
Davis is not the type of patient to mark time. In school, he didn’t cram for tests or suffer through all-nighters. He got ahead of the curve.
He took charge of his illness from the day he became “poz,” as he puts it, becoming a member of a unique community of people who happen to test positive for HIV.
“This is the cultural group that I identify with,” he says. “I’m not a victim.”
In fact, Davis lives a full and rich life. He works as an American Sign Language interpreter and likes to travel regularly.
Davis started alternative treatments as soon as he started taking AZT.
“I explored other options because I knew early on that I could not depend on Western medicine and I could not depend on my government to help keep me alive,” he says.
Davis visited the Bastyr Center for Natural Health in Seattle, and he sees a chiropractor and an acupuncturist. He takes at least ten nutritional supplements, including selenium, lipoic acid and glutamine.
“I go to Bastyr so that my body maintains a level of health and strength while my medications travel through my body and fight the HIV,” he says.
In any case, HIV/AIDS patients should always tell their doctors about any supplements they’re taking. Studies have shown that St. John’s wort and garlic, for example, interfere with AIDS drugs.
Davis pushes the boundaries of health care. He recently completed several weeks of Peat Hyperthermia Therapy, or PHT. He lies down in a tub of water heated to 109 degrees. It is similar to a hot tub, only hotter. Mixed with the water is a small amount of peat, partially carbonized vegetable matter found in bogs. It’s a fuel families in Ireland once burned in their hearths. Davis says PHT induces fever, which is one of the body’s natural immune defenses. The peat contains trace elements that boost the immune response, practitioners say.
Medics as skeptics
Some medical doctors still cringe at these treatments, remaining highly suspicious about the value of acupuncture needles or a super-hot bath for peat’s sake. But attitudes are changing. The University of Washington Medical School makes a distinct effort to familiarize students with complementary and alternative medicine.
Dr. Peter Shalit treats 400 HIV/AIDS patients in Washington State. He says 10 percent of them use CAM therapy. It is a surprisingly low number if you consider the Harvard studies showing nearly half of all Americans seek alternative therapies each year.
“There isn’t a lot of science to back up these techniques,” Shalit says. “But I’m not sure there needs to be. It’s intuitive and based on practical experience.”
Bastyr University is hoping to foster more science behind alternative HIV therapies. It is a federal research center on HIV for the government’s Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Research can require years to provide evidence, but Bastyr is making progress.
For his part, Davis has changed medical doctors when they don’t see the value of his alternative plans for maintaining health. He asks for what he wants, and he rejects advice when he chooses. For example, he will only take medications twice a day, not three times a day or some other frequency a doctor might order.
“Most doctors have a problem with me saying no,” Davis says. “Bastyr doesn’t have a problem with me saying no.”
Davis attributes some of his longevity in the face of HIV/AIDS to luck and genetics. He started on AZT soon after the Food and Drug Administration approved it. His brother has survived health-care challenges and his elderly parents are “practically indestructible.”
Davis’ active self-care goes beyond AZT and complementary therapies. He labels himself a “poster boy” for HIV/AIDS, because he’s often the one who speaks up on patient issues when other “poz” folks prefer to keep quiet. Talking about his HIV to friends, relatives and strangers reinforces his sense of control over the virus.
Plus, he lobbies other people with HIV/AIDS to work with integrative medicine practitioners.
“I don’t understand why more people don’t access these services,” he says. “It’s because they don’t know it’s out there.”
Davis knows soul care is as important as the pills or the peat. He welcomes activities that cleanse his spirit of occasional depression. For one, he is a member of the Seattle Men’s Chorus. He says singing lets him step above the constant threat HIV poses to him and other members of the popular choral group.
“I know we’re all still alive because we keep singing,” he says. “I’m still alive because I still sing.”
![[Send]](http://seattle.consciouschoice.com/sendlink/send.gif){kind=small}
Recommend this page to a friend
Top Ten pages recommended to friends:
