Debbie Canyok had tried everything.
While battling intestinal problems, she gulped down aloe
vera juice from health food stores. She tried tablets a doctor
recommended. Finally, her physicians said she needed surgery
to remove part of her intestine.
"I was in tears. I had gone
through this for probably five years," Canyok said. "I was in
pain."
But she didn't want to have surgery.
Then, while the Castle Rock resident was visiting her
daughter in Boulder, an advertisement in the newspaper caught
Canyok's eye. It was for Nancy Dutton's business, Healing
Hands of Energy.
"I thought, 'I'm going to try one more route,'" Canyok
said.
After three sessions with Dutton, Canyok said her
intestinal problems are gone and she's never felt better.
Dutton said more and more people are trying energy therapy.
She recently joined the Broomfield Chamber of Commerce in
hopes of reaching people outside of Boulder who would like to
try energy healing.
"Boulder's full of healers," she said. "My mission is to
bring energy healing to people who don't really know what it
is."
To meet Broomfield-area clients, Dutton offered her
services at Broomfield Days. She said the event was so
successful she plans to attend every year.
When Dutton performs a therapy session, she typically has
the patient lie on a table and she moves her hands above them,
without touching the patients, and adjusts their energy
points. The body has seven major energy centers and she can
feel which are closed and help to open them, she said.
Dutton said she also checks the energy fields emitted from
certain organs, which she said hold emotions. For example, she
said the liver holds anger and the kidney holds fear.
She works with adults, children and pets and said energy
therapy can help with physical and emotional problems. Many
pet owners want energy therapy to help cure their pet's
behavioral or emotional problems, Dutton said.
Broomfield resident David Stephen met Dutton at a
Broomfield Chamber event and decided to ask her to work with
his cat.
His 7-year-old feline friend, Trouble, hadn't been eating
and had lost 20 percent of her body weight. Stephen's
veterinarian couldn't figure out the problem.
Stephen, a university professor, said he's skeptical by
nature but decided to give energy therapy a try. Dutton came
to his home and performed the therapy and soon afterward
Stephen said Trouble starting eating again.
"I don't know if it was coincidence or not," he said. "It's
one of those things that you can't explain why it works."
But Stephen said he'd recommend energy therapy to others.
Dutton admits people who haven't tried energy therapy can
be skeptical.
"It even sounded weird to me before I did it," she said.
Dutton said she decided to leave her former career, selling
Harley Davidson parts, and become an energy healer because she
believes it helps people.
Scientific organizations are, however, starting to research
the effects of energy treatments.
Last year, the National Institutes for Health's
Complementary and Alternative Medicine Center awarded $250,000
in federal research grants for a "Healing Touch for Critically
Ill Newborns" study at Tucson University's Neonatal Intensive
Care Unit. The study is looking at how energy therapy can help
sick newborns.
In Colorado, Kaiser Permanente recently opened an
alternative medicine center in Aurora to capture that growing
market, according to spokeswoman Jacque Murphy Montgomery.
Dutton said energy therapy will probably become as popular
as chiropractic care or acupuncture.
"I think this is going to be really accepted in time," she
said.
