A New Mexico Naturopath’s Journey Out of Debilitating Chronic Fatigue

“I’m healthier now than I’ve ever been.”
– Louise

Louise Swartswalter is a force with a mega-watt smile, capable of lifting your mood through the phone or Zoom screen.

That’s why it’s so tough to reconcile this Louise with the one she once was.

In her 30s, she was bedridden.

Exhausted, she could no longer work as a special education teacher or really care for her own young children. In fact, her five-year-old daughter often tended to her.

She needed supplemental oxygen.

She couldn’t digest anything and had wasted away to 89 pounds.

And her memory was so bad that she kept her phone number written in her wallet.

Doctors weren’t sure what to make of Louise’s illness.

“I had a bunch of labels,” she says. “They said fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue… But the labels don’t help you get healthy.”

Removing Mercury Fillings

How did she get to this point? Louise was already fatigued and depressed when her dentist thought he had the answer. He suggested that her mercury fillings might be to blame, explaining that the acid in our mouths exacerbates the toxicity of the amalgams.

“I had a car battery in my mouth. I needed to get those fillings out,” Louise says.

A number of conditions have been associated with mercury toxicity, including immunosuppression, neurological disorders, cardiovascular diseases and hormonal imbalances.

The dentist proceeded to extract 14 mercury amalgams – all at once. While the mercury likely had been a problem, not-so-cautious removal left Louise feeling even worse.

“I actually felt like a Guinea pig,” she says. “He convinced me to do it all in one day and I was already too weak to do that. So I crashed.”

She now knows that such a procedure requires careful precautions.

Following the filling removals, Louise grew hyper-sensitive to everything in her environment. Anything electric – the refrigerator, the TV – made her fingertips tingle.

Addressing Multiple Chemical Sensitivities

Louise’s dentist had given her homeopathic remedies for detox, yet they didn’t improve her condition.

When conventional doctors were unable to help, next Louise turned to a chiropractor, an ortho-molecular doctor and an environmental doctor, Dr. Theron Randolph. The latter, a Chicago-area physician, had written a couple of books on allergies, including An Alternative Approach to Allergies: The New Field of Clinical Ecology Unravels the Environmental Causes of Mental and Physical Ills.

Dr. Randolph, 84 at the time, suspected that Louise had multiple chemical sensitivities. The goal, then, would be to radically clean up Louise’s lifestyle to reduce the assaults on her immune system.

Ultimately, with help from Dr. Randolph, plus the other practitioners, she began a multi-layered approach to healing:

• A cleaner, nutrient-rich diet – Louise switched to an organic, gluten-free diet and added vitamins and other nutrients. Back then, there were no gluten-free cookbooks, so she would receive hard-copies of recipes in the mail.
• Avoiding food triggers – Through muscle testing with Randolph, she identified food sensitivities like coconut and cut them from her diet.
• Reducing environmental toxins – The family moved from Chicago to an adobe home in New Mexico to cut their exposure to pesticides and herbicides and be among cleaner air. They also filtered their water, switched their home energy source from gas to electric, avoided household chemicals and spent more time in nature.
• Detox – Louise sweated out toxins, even using her hot car in the summer as a make-shift sauna.
• Exercise and being outdoors – She and her family enjoyed hikes around their new home.
• Spiritual/mindset work – She kept a gratitude journal to foster a positive mindset.
• Prioritized sleep – Getting enough sleep helped her body heal.

Clearing Emotional Blocks

Within a few years, Louise had made considerable progress. She felt significantly better, but still didn’t feel fully back to herself.

Following her intuition, she took the leap and invested in a biofeedback device. It assessed the state of her electrical body and helped put it back in balance.

She also turned to energy work to clear spiritual, mental and emotional blocks to healing. With this last step, she finally got back to her energetic self.

With all she had been through, Louise emerged with a new purpose. She went on to become a naturopathic doctor, study energy medicine and open the Albuquerque Natural Health Center.

She created a multi-sensory program similar to the approach she had used when teaching kids with dyslexia. It helps her clients balance the brain, and optimize and align the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual parts of themselves. Her approach includes trauma release, kinesiology, naturopathic guidance and energy work. She can even perform muscle testing remotely.

“It helps people shift their energy very quickly,” she explains. “I’m like a detective because of what I’ve been through. I can figure out what’s needed without blood tests.”

“I wish, honestly, that I had found someone like myself,” she adds. “That’s why I’m teaching it now. I’m healthier now than I’ve ever been.”

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