The room started spinning and the floor and walls seemed to be closing in on me, the smell of aromatic oils filling my nostrils, moments before I collapsed to the soft, carpeted floor.

Quite simply I had fainted mid-interview. Five months pregnant, and feeling light-headed, I had succumbed to the heat in one of the best places to fall over, out cold, in all of Hamilton.

For once this interview was no boardroom or chief executive?s office, but one of the treatment rooms at the HealingWorks Bermuda, a small complimentary medicine business run by a husband and wife team.

As Larry Trott helped me to my feet, Karen Simons ran for water. As I stood shakily again, recovering from the surprise, Mr. Trott placed his hands over my face and tried, with sweeping downward motions, to take the energy back from my head to my feet.

I quickly recovered under their watchful eye, and whether it was the energy-guiding hands or the water and a seat that made the difference, the care they took over my well-being showed why more and more residents are turning up at their door looking for healing.

To many complimentary or alternative medicine is considered a quack?s game and is derided and dismissed out of hand. For others it is a way of life that has changed the way they feel and live.

But it is now slowly becoming more mainstream as more and more tests show that natural remedies and acupuncture actually do help with many aches, pains and real illnesses.

In a recent survey, 65 percent of US citizens said that they had tried some kind of alternative therapy with more and more US and European insurance companies paying for treatments ? giving patients more choice about how to deal with common complaints such as pain, depression and stress.

?We deal with the emotional as well as the physical,? said Mr. Trott, who along with his wife, Ms Simons, are trying to win Bermudians round to taking alternative medicines seriously. ?We try to recognise an illness before it takes hold.?

The couple have run Healing Works Bermuda and the Academy of Integrate Healing Arts for the past year, and have been building up a steady clientele on the Island.

?People tend to come to us as a last resort. They have tried everything else and they can be in very bad shape. But we believe that if they come to us earlier, we could do a lot more to help them.?

The couple have always been interested in healing, and both came to be practitioners after trying other careers first.

Mr. Trott ran his own paint contracting company, but found the work ?toxic? and far removed from his day-to-day life as a vegetarian, a student of martial arts, yoga and massage therapy.

After 11 years of keeping the business going, he took a leap of faith and went on to study therapeutic massage in New Orleans.

?I needed to do something more in keeping with the rest of my lifestyle,? he said. ?And massage therapy seemed like a natural progression.

While in New Orleans he studied Tai Chi, acupuncture and Chinese medicine, along with many different forms of massage.

His wife has been involved with the martial arts since the age of 14, and took up yoga and meditation and gradually moved towards an ?alternative? lifestyle.

She was a special education teacher, before becoming principal of the Friendship Vale School and then worked as an administrator in the Department of Education after the school closed.

The couple met during a Native American sweat lodge ceremony at Warwick Camp about four years ago and clicked immediately. They said they had found soul mates in each other, someone who could understand the other?s lifestyle and were married soon after.

The couple went back to school to get doctorates in metaphysics, and returned to Bermuda a year ago to set up their own practice.

?I realised it was time to do this full time,? said Ms Simons. ?It was quite a difficult step. I had always had very secure work, working for Government, but I have never been happier. It is very different from what I was doing before.?

The couple used their savings to set up their business, which is in an unlikely-looking office in the Washington Mall office block on Church Street.

The walls in the two treatment rooms are painted soft pink and green, and are hardly recognisable as the same offices on the floor.

The couple did all the work on the studio and do all the books themselves. Ms Simons recognises that doing the books on one hand and healing with the other can be challenging.

?We do everything ourselves,? she said. ?We have to be very left brain and right brain. And we have kept everything simple up until this point.?

The couple say it is hard putting a price on what they do, and would like to be able to give treatments for free ? but cannot do this because it is their livelihood.

They are hoping that the attitude of the local insurance companies will change so that some of their treatments can be covered by insurance ? making it more affordable to average residents.

?We have helped people come off hundreds of dollars worth of pain killers a week,? said Mr. Trott. ?I believe the day is coming (when treatment will be covered by insurance). It is a matter of understanding what we do and what we can do for people.?

Ms Simons said: ?We term ourselves as complimentary medicine, and we can enhance what ordinary medicine does. We have had some referrals from doctors.?

?In fact we can help people deal more quickly with issues, and help improve the time of recovery. We can save companies a lot of money by treating people.?

The couple say they have a good relationship with PALS and would like to see complimentary medicine accepted as an alternative with clinics in say the King Edward Memorial Hospital.

?We spend a lot of time with people and teach people things that they can do for themselves, so they do not become dependent on us,? said Mr. Trott. ?We want to find the root cause of a disease, and not just treat the symptoms.?

Mr. Trott and Ms Simons are the only practitioners at the moment in their Hamilton haven, but have visiting professionals who come down to do special treatments, teach and do retreats.

At the moment the couple say they are happy with just the two of them working together, side by side, but did not rule out growing the business.

?We have ideas of expansion, but I am not sure we want to be talking about that yet,? said Mr. Trott.