You may have been led to believe that you are stuck with debilitating allergies for life. With the right interventions, you can minimise or recover from your allergies.
Asthma and eczema are becoming increasingly common, with Australia having one of the highest rates of asthma in the world. The World Health Organisation predicted that by 2020, fifty per cent of people in western populations will suffer from allergies.
Allergic rhinitis, (hayfever) asthma and the sneezing, hives, swelling, redness, itching and wheezing that comes with them, is due to the immune system releasing histamine, which is why anti-histamines can be helpful in reducing symptoms.
Many allergies are triggered by foods or airborne substances. Skin prick testing for airborne allergies and blood tests for food allergies to identify all your allergens helps you to avoid your individual allergens when possible.
To manage environmental allergies, people can spend large amounts of time and money to reduce dust, mould, removing carpets, changing bedding and investing in high-tech vacuum cleaners. Some people renovate their homes, or even move house.
If If you’re tired of beating a path to the pharmacist for antihistamines, nasal sprays and cortisone, and don’t want to be stuck allergies for life, another option is to try increasing your resilience to allergens.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
Protect
- To reduce the amount of sneezing, apply a barrier gel inside your nose to prevent allergens creating a histamine reaction.
- To kill dust mites, add eucalyptus oil to your wash when changing bedding and clothing.
- Keep mould growth to a minimum by spring-cleaning at the start of Spring and the end of Summer. Vinegar kills mould spores.
- To avoid outdoor moulds, throw out everything which isn’t needed in your back yard – especially in wet areas.
- Check out low allergen plants you can grow in your garden, or ask for if you are being given flowers as a gift.
Cleanse
- Wash your face several times a day.
- Removing old debris from your nose is a great Spring-clean for you. Nasal flushing reduces symptoms by washing out offending allergens. Do regular saline nasal flushes with a neti pot which many people report helps to clear up their chronic rhinitis.
Avoid Chemicals
- Chemicals aggravate allergies, so avoid any perfumed product that makes you sneeze.
- Minimising chemicals does really help. Grand Designs tells how one family achieved huge improvements for their severely allergic children by carefully selecting furnishings and building materials.
- Eat organic fruit and vegetables where possible.
- Reduce household chemicals. Vinegar kills mould spores better than bleach and avoids nasal irritation from bleach. Baking soda and vinegar used together, is a pretty good non-toxic household cleaner.
- Even people without allergies, will sneeze when walking down the laundry and cleaning products aisle in supermarkets, so it is important to minimise perfumed products, like washing powders, body care products, soaps, toilet paper, tissues etc.
- Avoid pesticides like fly spray and garden insecticides.
Boost Immunity
Allergies are the result of an over-sensitive immune system. These recommendations can help to balance your immune system responses to allergens.
- Avoid antibiotics where possible, as they weaken resistance against allergies due to their effect on gut flora, which is responsible for up to 80% of our immune responses.
- Eat probiotic foods like good quality yoghurt (sugar and cream free) Kefir, Kombucha, and homemade salsa and other pickles. Probiotic supplements are costly, and the benefit is greater when the correct probiotic is applied to your individual gut microbiome.
- Check your vitamin D levels . There is a strong link between allergies and low vitamin D levels.
- Vitamins A, C, Quercetin and the mineral zinc and are important to modify allergic reactions.
Alkalise to Minimise Allergic Reactions
- Due to their alkalising effect on the body, fresh fruit and veg, along with vitamin C, help to reduce the intensity of allergic reactions.
- Green smoothies, fresh juices, or lemon juice in water, help to keep your body more alkaline.
TREATMENT
- Immunotherapy, or medical desensitisation, is ideal where there are allergies to only one or two substances and is ideal for severe and life-threatening allergies.
- But many people have multiple food and environmental allergies, and this is where herbal and homeopathic medicines can be helpful. If you know which substances affect you, a homeopathic medicine can made from them, to take at the time you are exposed to the allergen.
- Other therapies such as kinesiology and NAET (Nambudripad’s Allergy Elimination Technique) can also be helpful. Practitioners trained in both homeopathy and NAET are available in most countries. While the techniques are unconventional, there is evidence that they work. The NAET organisation conducts its own trials (in the same way that pharmaceutical companies trial medications that they manufacture) and there is a substantial amount of evidence that homeopathy is helpful in treating allergies Meta-Analysis of the Homeopathic Treatment of Pollinosis with Galphimia glauca.
In Good News for People With Bad News there is a success story of woman who suffered from lifelong debilitating allergies and recovered after using a combination of dietary, homeopathic and NAET treatment.