• Immunotherapy - commonly called 'allergy shots' but which are also administered under the tongue- for the (generally) multiple allergy triggers. These can take months to years of treatment to be effective, if they are at all.
• Avoidance of the common allergy triggers which are often difficult or impossible to avoid.
These treatments usually work temporarily, but symptoms tend to return so that most people tend to have an ongoing chronic problem. Lets face it, if these treatments worked, the US would not spend over 3.5 BILLION dollars annually for this ONE problem!
The reason that these seasonal allergy treatments don't work is that they never address the question of why the immune system is hyper reactive in the first place. It never addresses the source of the problem. These treatments don't work because this hyper reaction is really just a SYMPTOM.
Allergic diseases are not truly diseases in and of themselves, but symptoms of underlying imbalance in the body.
Most western medicine practitioners would disagree with this statement and we can debate about clinical trials or evidence that proves one or the other of these theories as being right.
But having this viewpoint allows us to stop looking at seasonal allergies as a chronic illness, and start looking at it as communication from the body telling us that something is out of balance.
This allows us to fix what is out of balance and solve the problem, rather than simply suppress allergy symptoms.
But aren't seasonal allergies genetic?
Yes, more people who get allergic disease have family members who have them. Studies do show genetic components to these diseases and scientists are looking at multiple genes as being the culprit in these diseases.
But it is not an inherent genetic defect that causes these problems. Genetics INFLUENCES whether you have allergic disease and how severe it is, but genetics do not CAUSE them - environmental factors cause the EXPRESSION of these genes. Not EVERYONE who has these genes will get the disease. Environmental factors cause the body to get out of balance which leads the genes to express the illness.
Genes are not the problem.
Then what IS the problem?
In one sentence,
the immune system is the problem.
The immune system is designed to differentiate that which will hurt you from that which won't - and destroy that which will. That is really its ONLY job.
Healthy immune systems do not go into emergency mode over pet dander and pollen.
But unhealthy immune systems do - especially when they have the genetic tendency to do so. And since environment influences the health of your immune system, and the immune system tells genes to express these illnesses, an improved environment can
keep your genes from expressing allergic disease as well.
Environmental Factors and Allergies
So, it's a variety of environmental factors, not JUST allergy triggers, that cause your allergy symptoms. Unfortunately, there are many factors that interact to contribute to your illness. Fortunately, small changes in any one of these factors can make a big difference. Just as a pebble dropped into a pond causes ripples to cover the entire surface, so even
small changes can ripple benefits throughout your whole body.
Some of the more important, and controllable, environmental factors that contribute to the expression of your seasonal allergies are:
• Nutrition
•
Environmental Toxin Exposure
• Digestive System Health
• Inflammation
• Exercise
• Stress levels
Seasonal Allergies can be a thing of the past by taking action and making changes in your lifestyle is one of the most important things that you can do for your health. You might be surprised at what some minor changes can do for your chronic asthma symptoms.
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