This web page provides clients of Healing Ways an opportunity to share their experiences of natural healing. The ideas and opinions expressed in their writings are their own and do not necessarily reflect opinions about health and healing held by the practitioners or staff of Healing Ways. We publish their comments with a minimum of editing to preserve their authenticity.

The following testimonials come from clients of Healing Ways. Some names have been withheld to preserve confidentiality.

Benefits of ONDAMED® Therapy

I received a diagnosis of osteoporosis in 2005. I was not willing to treat with medication and so I consulted with Bärbel Aldridge at Healing Ways. She recommended that I begin treatment with the Ondamed® machine with Doug Aldridge at their office. I have been treated for about two years, starting in 2006 and have had my bone density tested two times in that period, most recently in January of 2008. Both times the density has improved and the most recent test indicates an improvement of 6.8%, which is nearly at the stage of osteopenia rather than osteoporosis. I feel that the Ondamed® treatments combined with the other things I do are a significant factor in this improvement. I plan to continue. 

Shirley S. Johnson in NC

Thanks again for the Ondamed® session last Friday. I thought you might like feedback on my results. I have had a 95% improvement in my left ear (it"s slid back to about 70% now)!! I also had a malalignment of my ribs on the left, but didn"t mention it because I didn"t think the Ondamed® would have any effect on skeletal alignment, but they felt totally better after the session! Some viral upper respiratory symptoms that I had disappeared. Most notable though was the improvement in my mood. I felt much more happy and optimistic for the next 3 days and still have some of that effect. So I have been very impressed.

Dr. X in VA

Heaven on Earth
Experience of Inner Harmony
By Sandra Cowart

My body experience of the ONDAMED® treatment is a real coming home sensation.

All seems right with the world, a real linking up of organs so that the systems of the body feel in such agreement. The body, mind, spirit and soul are at rest and peace.

All of this in addition to a true healing of the body and what is ailing it at the time.

What more can one ask? Ecstatic healing with joy not pain.

Patients of Bärbel Aldridge write:

Dear Bärbel,

Thank you. Thank you. Clearly being led to you is a gift for me. You are awesome, intuitive, caring, bold, sensitive, powerful, empowering & precious. WOW! I am honored to be called into joining you in some very powerful, life altering service. It is my goal to make a tremendous difference.

EM - Jamestown, NC

I’m 69 years old, and two of my favorite things to do are sewing and singing. Unfortunately, both of these have been giving me blinding headaches every time, and this has been going on for some years now. I haven’t let it stop me, but it has cut down on my enjoyment. Recently I noticed that the pain has gone! I’ve been seeing Bärbel for about six months, and I’ve had a few Ondamed® sessions in the last two months, and I’ve been making great progress on other problems.  I’ve lost about forty pounds of excess weight and reduced my need for heart and liver medications. And I’m finally recovering from complications of surgery. My digestion and elimination are much better. And I have a lot more energy. But this is a miracle! The pain is gone, and I’m able to sing notes I could never hit before—I sing better now than ever! Maybe it’s because my sinuses have gotten so clear. Whatever the reason, I’m thrilled!

J. L.  in Boston, Mass.

True Story of the Month
From our February Newsletter
From the Case Files of Barbel Aldridge, ND

It has been almost 20 years since I’ve been even remotely close to feeling as well as I feel today.  It has taken me almost as much time to figure out what really happened to me and that I was not crazy.  Not to mention, doing it alone (for the most part), confused, with an inefficient mind and limited resources. Conventional wisdom and modern medicine had just about written me off.  For years I woke up not wanting to.  The days and nights were too difficult and repetitive.  I knew what was in store for me every day and I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life struggling for no apparent reason.  I had lost all zest for life.  There was no one to consistently remind me that there was plenty to live for.  Unbeknowst to me, I was dying from the ill effects of toxicity from my military experience. 

There are names for what I was experiencing --- Gulf War Syndrome/CFS/Multiple Chemical Sensitivity/Gastrointestinal Disorders/Sleep Apnea/Restless Leg Syndrome, etc.  A concrete diagnosis of any one of these esoteric ailments is very hard to obtain from a doctor because they are very controversial and political.  Not to mention the bias I encountered as a veteran and a minority. I might as well have tried to go to the moon.  It would have been a shorter ride.

I had so many different symptoms from day to day, it was hard to keep up.  I tried to keep a diary at times, but writing was more difficult that running a marathon.  So I fought to take care of myself and keep my sanity intact.  God only knows how I did it, because continually I felt I was losing my grip on reality.

Nothing made any sense to me; the reactions of my friends and family even made less sense.  I had to keep reminding myself that I had always been a good person, friend, brother, father, son, because after so many years of suffering, everything I did revolved around my illness.  Yet I kept my pride and integrity and didn’t resort to the usual escapes that people use (especially veterans).

I tried doing research on my own, when I could, with one eye open, because of my low mental capacity and energy level.  I had to become more informed. I found out that the many vaccinations I received could cause all that I went through (and more).  I came upon the idea by accident. I felt The Lord was trying to tell me something because it kept reappearing at the strangest times, so I let it seep into me, and I finally accepted this possibility I had denied for so long.  How impossible could this be!  Quite possible.  Even after so many years had passed, who would’ve thought?  No one I’d been talking to!

I have spent a lot time and money over the years trying to find a cure, or at least things to mitigate my symptoms (mostly vitamins and herbs).  My doctor at the VA is understanding and genuinely tries to be helpful, but he has yet to find me any treatment for GWS/CFS, etc. I have seen my fair share of doctors, after which, I ended up where I started.  Then along came Bärbel and Healing Ways.  My life and health started to change!

I met Bärbel Aldridge at The Natural Triad Health Fair in the spring of 2007 and after talking to her for a few minutes, I knew she was the person I needed.  Right from the beginning she was open to the possibility of causation I presented to her.  Moreover, she was open to me telling her my story and did the most important thing in this process --- she listened!  That helped restore my sanity and boosted my self-confidence.

From the very beginning, she had a plan in mind, but also she had an end time.  That was very unusual for me to meet someone who not only thought she could help me, but was confident that I wouldn’t be a patients forever.  This I had never heard before.  She was confident about my own recovery before I was!  She shared this vision with me and eventually I came around to believing it.

Right from the start she knew my condition was complex, grave, and would take some time to heal.  She made that quite clear!  She validated all my strenuous efforts to stay alive. She acknowledged that all those vitamins and herbs I took over the years did keep me functioning above the level where I should have been (according to my readings on her equipment).  No one knows how difficult that was for me.  It was a constant struggle to find out if anything helped or hurt, to sift through all my symptoms and figure it out.  I didn’t have to do that anymore.  Her electrodermal testing took the guesswork out of this process.  What a relief!  That also decreased my anxiety and stress, triggers for feeling worse.  Stress kicked off the deterioration, and then my body just became discombobulated.

With my chronic, mysterious, painful condition, it was a constant struggle to stay alive and want to stay alive. I went through more than my share of that!  What I am trying to say is “She gave me my life back and made me find hope again!”

Something that was the responsibility of my family, became hers.  She graciously accepted it. She told me that I wasn’t crazy, and her Biofeedback machine supported my own theory with evidence of metals in my system.  She took her time to explain everything to me even though my focus wasn’t acute.  She still pressed on, and I tried to comprehend all I could.  She put together the pieces for me, like she was Sherlock Holmes and I, Watson. Her intuitive nature was a perfect accent to our chemistry.  On top of that, her perfectionist personality was a necessary component.  Her methodology is complete and dynamic (constantly adapting to the myriad of bodily changes I underwent).  It was ancient symmetry, coordination, and cooperation.  The most basic of all human relationships.  That invisible something that unites us all.

She put me back together like Humpty Dumpty.  Painstakingly and earnestly trying to get the most accurate combination of remedies together at each visit, which was no easy task for her.  She was always accessible to me, even though I didn’t take full advantage of that.  She worked every minute I went to see her.  She earned every penny!  Her work ethic is impeccable!  I believe it is that very drive that made this whole process possible.  Without it, she would have been like all the others who were satisfied with not even a best guess.  I would not be as I am today!

Bärbel does this with eloquence, grace and especially love.  Yes love, the main ingredient.  Nothing can be accomplished without that.  I am indebted to her beyond words, for getting me on this road to recovery.  She has restored my will to live and reminded me who I was before all this happened to me.  Just about twenty years ago.

Though it hasn’t been an easy road for either of us, I wouldn’t take any of it back.  It was as close to perfect as any relationship I will ever be a part of.  There was this genuine, unusual concern for me (and I her), which is so natural!  It was almost poetic --- Structured in meter, rhyme, cadences and infused with metaphor.  Resulting in my receiving what I needed most of all, recovery from my illnesses.

Much “Thank yous” to you, Bärbel, and to the staff of Healing Ways!

D.G., Greensboro, NC

True Story of the Month
From our January Newsletter
From the Case Files of Bärbel Aldridge, ND

What would you do if your doctor told you that you had contracted a disease that would eventually kill you? Although he couldn"t be sure how long it would take—maybe two years, perhaps twenty—for all the symptoms to show up, when they did it wouldn"t be a pretty picture. CREST scleroderma—an autoimmune disease that can deform the body and face, causing ulcers on fingers, thickening, hardening, and discoloration of skin, acid reflux, and calcifications in joints giving rise to bunions, gout, and arthritis—is the diagnosis Banks was given.

Incurable. As if his body were gradually turning to stone.

With medications, he could look forward to a more gradual onset of symptoms and a slower decline into deformity, disability and, finally, death.

Banks went to his doctor because, in his early forties, he had begun to be troubled by acid reflux, a painful digestive disorder, and Raynaud's disease, a loss of circulation in his extremities that caused numbness or tingling. He was also troubled with high blood pressure, a symptom related to the circulatory degeneration typical of scleroderma. His internist referred Banks to a rheumatologist, who confirmed the first doctor's suspicion that Banks was experiencing the onset of this crippling scourge.

At that time, Banks was living an active, healthy lifestyle. "I jogged 40 miles a week," he recalls. "I ate well, and avoided fat. Golf filled my leisure time with enjoyment. I was, and remain, happily married".

"The prospect of chronic illness with a truly horrible, incurable disease came as a stunning blow. Medications offered the only hope, and I took them faithfully. My rheumatologist told me that there is no known cure for my disease, but the drugs we do have would help me until more progress toward a cure is made. He told me I would be on these drugs for the rest of my life, unless a cure is found. Even with good health insurance, my co-pay for the nine prescription meds I was on came to $400 a month. Without insurance, it would have been many hundreds more."

Banks is now 59. Over the intervening years, the rheumatologist's prognosis has proven correct, with additional symptoms manifesting gradually. By his mid-50's Banks was suffering with full blown symptoms, and despite his stubborn efforts to stay active, and daily doses of prescription drugs, he wasn"t doing well. "My energy was low," he recalls, "and my immune system was weak. A persistent strep infection on top of all the other problems I was having put me into a state of constant fatigue. My fingers were at their worst, with hardening, thickening skin, digital ulcers, and red, feverish skin peeling. I had bunions on my feet with attacks of gout, and a frequent sensation of cold in my extremities.

One afternoon ...(about 1-2 years?)... ago, I was watching The Golf Channel, and the famous old pro Gary Player, who is now the picture of health and vitality in his 70's, was talking about a book on nutrition called The China Study. He recommended getting off dairy products for 30 days. I decided to try it and see what happens, and I bought a copy of the book. That's when I started opening up to making lifestyle changes to help myself.

I knew that if I wanted to keep eating and drinking as my major activities, and keep taking my meds, I could do that. It's what a lot of people I know are doing, and some of them are doctors. But I want to be able to get out and enjoy activities, play golf, and do the things I want to do. So I decided to make a change.

The dietary change helped, and I started feeling better. I wound up going on a vegan diet, and I continued seeing positive changes in how I felt. And I lost a little weight, which did me good. But my friends told me I didn't look well, and they attributed it to my not eating meat and dairy. I quit worrying about what other people thought, and looked for more ways to help myself.

I started eating only organic food. I switched to natural household and personal care products. Going from aspartame to stevia helped. I find that I can tell when things are working or not, so I took kind of a shotgun approach and started trying everything that offered any promise of improvement.

For a while I went to a natural health practitioner who used a device that was based on quantum physics, and although I learned a lot from her the therapy wasn't working. She told me it was because of my medications, but I wasn't ready to get off them yet, so I decided to take a break from that approach.

When I heard about Bärbel Aldridge, ND I was looking for someone who could guide me further in the direction I've been going. I accomplished a lot by trial and error on my own, but I was hoping to find someone who could help me make faster progress and get better results. I have been a patients for 2 months now, and I feel intuitively and physically that Bärbel got me on the right therapy.

Since I started with her, I have gotten much more than I thought was possible for me in such a short time. I was on nine prescription meds, as I said before. I'm down to one. My blood pressure stays in a healthy range, and I've learned to control it with diet alone. I have more energy. I feel better, and I'm able to do more. The weather's not good for golf this time of year, but I'm lifting weights, and I can walk my dog again. My energy has been low so long . . . I don't know what to expect, but now I have a lot of hope. I am pleased with my results so far. I know that I will be well now.

I still have a lot of ups and downs, and I understand that's what happens as a person goes through the healing process naturally. I've had people say to me that I look better, for no reason at all. Of course my skeptical friends attribute it to getting off my vegan diet! I am now eating some fish, a little beef raised without antibiotics and hormones, and organic chicken, as Bärbel recommended.

When I tell my friends that I got off my drugs and I'm getting well, they blow it off. They don't even ask me how that's possible! I guess it comes down to this: a lot of people aren't interested in taking charge of their health. They'd rather go to the doctor once a year, take whatever is prescribed, and go on with their business. I want to be healthy and enjoy many more years. I'm almost 60 and I feel that I have 20 or 30 years left. I don't want to be bedridden. I want to live them free of the burden of chronic disease. The work I'm doing with Bärbel is making that dream come true.

Banks C. in NE Tennessee