Ever since I was a baby, I have had spring allergies. My mother noticed they were allergies when I was 3 and experiencing what seemed to be cold-like symptoms with a runny nose, sneezing, runny watery eyes but no fever, no aches. They just happened about but the same time each year. Every June 1, I sneezed, had teary eyes,itchy nose and was miserable for about 2 weeks. Not until adulthood, did I try to do my best to lessen the allergy symptoms without prescription drugs.
I never got tested for my allergies. Mine always happened June 1st and lasted about 2 weeks. So I am allergic to the first 2 weeks of June – or whatever grows that time of year. Since moving to Philadelphia, the allergies moved to middle of May, so that means mine are coming up soon….or maybe they won’t this year? I might not sneeze through the two weeks or have the other symptoms – itch eyes, runny and itchy end of nose (feel like Tabatha from Bewitched – but no magic happens when I rub my nose. drat) or the itchy throat (where the best way to scratch it is not pleasant sounding to anyone standing close by).
Here are a few things I have learned about from my own personal experience that has helped lessen my allergy symptoms. Now I have just 1 symptom primarily – the itchy eyes. All the other symptoms are so mild and I think I sneezed twice last year vs 3 times every 10 minutes during allergy season.
For itchy eyes, I use Bausch & Lomb’s Optcon-A – it stings a bit when you put them in when itching, but they have the histamine in the eye drops. My eyes then don’t itch for hours!
Limit or eliminate the dairy – milk, cheese, yogurt and ice cream – dairy is congesting so although it will not be the cause of the symptoms, dairy will aggravate the symptoms. I try to avoid it during the two weeks and will be avoiding it the week before the season starts just to lessen the allergy symptoms!
Add probiotics! This will help to boost the immune system and also lessen congestion from allergies. I would suggest Metagenics brand either Restore, Balance or Spectrum. I can also muscle test for you to see which would be best for you – sometimes it is best to rotate your probiotics monthly .
Add Perimine! Metagenics makes this product which is a perilla seed extract . It helps to stop the histamine cycle so the response to allergens is minimized. Here is the link to Perimine. Many of my clients use this just in the spring to ward off the symptoms to give the body a boost and breathe easier.
Add daikon radish to your meals daily starting with 1 week before your allergy season starts. This helps the liver as well with that detoxification pathway and minimizing the histamine loop. Will other radishes do the same thing? Maybe but daikon I have found is the best one for lessening seasonal allergy symptoms.
Add essential oils.I had a client following the above suggestions and their daughter is really finding relief! This year, we introduced essential oils. DoTerra has a blend of oils called TriEase which includes 3 oils (lemon, lavender and peppermint) in a softgel to be taken internally. We have not tried it but it is an option.
My client has used an inhaler every spring for her allergies. This year she followed the above protocols as usual (except the TriEase), but added essential oils to diffuse in her room at night.
This is the first time ever, she has not needed to refill the prescription for the inhaler!
She used 3 drops of each oil overnight: eucalyptus, lemon and lavender. They are diffusing this blend overnight and have found the symptoms to subside. It is worth a try as essential oils support your immune system, where many prescription medications mask symptoms, but often have side effects which may create an imbalance in the liver, intestinal flora, or have unpleasant side effects.
I tried Flonase the first year I moved here to Philadelphia in 2002. My allergies were suddenly horrible.
It made my heart race so fast, that even standing, my heart rate was racing at 127 beats per minute. Usually it was more like 88-98. I stopped taking that pretty quickly! I cannot remember what else I had done to endure my 2 weeks of allergies that year but I am sure I just suffered through the symptoms. The doctors just wanted to give me medications. I didn’t want those.
A year later, I was in my new townhouse and had hardwood floors installed instead of carpeting. Guess what – no more horrible allergies! So keep that in mind, too – your carpet might be aggravating symptoms. And yes, I am sure there is an essential oils blend you can use for that 🙂 In 2002, the first year here, I was living in an apartment with old carpeting and who knows what was aggravating the symptoms but now I just assume it was that carpeting. It was not that I was in the “worst allergy area of the country’ as per my new doctor. If I had known about essential oils then, I would be able to tell you if using OnGuard in a diffuser for a few days would have helped the carpet issues. And if just putting in the lavender, lemon and eucalyptus would help allergies.
This year, I am doing all of the above. Who knows, maybe I won’t have the itchy eyes anymore if I add the essential oils?? Somehow that seems a bit of a stretch. But I will say, with all the above recommendations, MY allergies have subsided and the itchy eyes are the worst symptom, but even that is only minimal.
The sneezing, itch back of throat and itchy nose are also minimal instead of constant. Give these a try and see how your body responds. And please let me know how these recommendations have worked to lessen our allergy symptoms!