Wellness Center a glimpse of alternative medicine

By CHARLES W. JOHNSON / Staff Reporter for the Southern Standard

Tracy McBride, 23, discusses the benefits of massage therapy with local therapist Connie Weeter at the Healing Arts Festival held at River Park hospital recently. The event was sponsored by Health Sphere Wellness Center. (Charles W. Johnson photo)

Everything seems to be going “retro” these days. There are 21st century cars with a very ’50s look. Bell-bottoms are back. People are wearing tie-dye again. Even small kitchen appliances like toasters are getting that rounded retro style.

So it probably shouldn’t be surprising medicine is experiencing this same kind of retro movement. A movement toward more natural remedies and changes in lifestyle and diet as a path to good health. A movement that has taken on a very descriptive name. It is called “wellness,” and Wellness Centers have been springing up all over the country with a holistic approach to healing. One that endeavors to treat the spirit as well as the body.

Warren County residents got a look at these techniques and philosophies at the first Healing Arts Festival held Saturday, Aug. 17 at River Park hospital. The event, sponsored by the Health Sphere Wellness Center operated by local holistic healer Karen Pryor, brought together a diverse group of alternative medicine practitioners in one place, to meet and inform the public about the concepts and virtues of wellness.

“It’s kind of breaking out of the ‘this for that’ mentality. Oh, you have this disease, this symptom. Well, we’re going to give you this for that,” said Dr. Rowen S. Pfeifer of Living Health Chiropractic Clinic in Nashville.

“We’re teaching lifestyle principles so you don’t ever develop all these symptoms that need to be chased all the rest of your life. You do these things, you just get well.”

Wellness advocates encourage the use of natural medicines, plant extracts and herbs, things that occur in nature and have been used for centuries to treat a variety of ills. They extoll the virtues of exercise, therapeutic massage, the healing touch of Reiki and physical disciplines like yoga, reflexology and TaiChi.

They employ seemingly odd tools like aroma therapy and something called “plant spirit medicine,” where communing with nature is said to strengthen natural immunities.

The strength of this movement is especially evident these days, since major mainstream cosmetic companies have begun adding wellness products to their lines. Avon, for instance, now offers a catalog with massage and reflexology tapes and equipment, as well as aroma therapy and herbal supplements.

With the increasing popularity of these techniques, and a new acceptance of their worth in mainstream medicine, perhaps one has to look at the history of conventional medicine in the last century to really understand this movement toward simplicity in the healing arts.

During the 20th century, medical knowledge, spurred on by developing technologies, took a huge leap over the centuries that preceded it. If the people of the 1800s had seen some of the medical marvels of the late 20th century, they would probably have looked on them as being more science fiction than medicine.

When you walk into a hospital room these days and see patients hooked up to the various monitors, with wires and tubes running everywhere, and the bleeps and blips of the digital readouts and blinking lights, the patient can look more like a cyborg than a human being. Something a lot more people are looking on as needlessly dehumanizing in many cases.

Pharmaceuticals have gone through a similar evolution, with more and more sophisticated and diverse varieties of drugs at physicians’ disposal to treat all the various illnesses and endemic conditions that plague our society today.

Drugs to treat mental illness, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer are looked upon as miracles of science by many physicians and lay-people, and certainly have saved many lives. But even the proponents of these drugs will admit that healing power sometimes comes with a heavy price when you consider the potential side-effects of long term use.

Some even say there is now a whole new subset of drugs that have been developed specifically to combat the side effects of other drugs.

Patients tell horror stories of having one drug prescribed for a certain illness, then having another drug prescribed to treat the side effects of the first drug, and yet another drug prescribed to treat conditions brought on by the first two drugs, until they have a medicine cabinet packed with a confusing array of drugs and a huge bill at the pharmacy.

Little wonder then that people embrace something that offers a way to use the healing powers of the mind and the natural world to prevent illness, rather than using chemicals and technology to treat the symptoms after the fact.

Oddly enough, modern pharmacists are now jumping on the natural remedies bandwagon. Local pharmacist Mary Woodlee of Stewart’s Pharmacy was at the festival touting alternative methods in conjunction with conventional drug therapy.

For more information on wellness concepts and alternative medicine and therapies, contact Karen Pryor at the Health Sphere Wellness Center located at 1589 Sparta St. here in McMinnville. Phone: (931) 815-0037.