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How to Address Allergies and Asthma with Alternative Allergy Treatments

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By Dr. Mercola [1]

Spring allergies affect an estimated 25 million Americans, and according to the American Board of Allergy and Immunology, we’re looking at one of the worst allergy seasons in a long time, thanks to a number of climactic factors.1

The Asthma and Allergy Foundation’s annual list of the worst cities for those with spring allergies (based on tree pollen counts) include the following five:2

Airborne pollen is the most common cause of seasonal allergies, also known as hay fever or allergic rhinitis. Early arrival after a mild winter has spawned high levels of pollen, and means allergy season will linger weeks longer. Both 2011 and 2012 reported record-breaking pollen numbers, and this season will likely break those records.

Needless to say, sales of allergy medications of all kinds are booming. This includes antihistamines, decongestants, nasal sprays and allergy shots—many of which can cause significant side effects.

According to the featured article in Forbes, the US market for allergy drugs is projected to hit or exceed $14.7 billion by 2015:

“The companies named to benefit most include Schering-Plough, Novartis, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries (Vicks), Meda Pharmaceuticals, Collegium Pharmaceutical, McNeil Consumer Healthcare, and others, including companies that make alternative remedies as well.”

One of the better alternatives is sublingual allergy drops, which have been shown to work just as well as inhalers. Sublingual immunotherapy has not been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but is widely used in Europe, and some American doctors prescribe it off label.

There are also a number of other alternatives, including provocation neutralization treatment. The success rate for this approach to treating allergies is about 80 to 90 percent, and you can receive the treatment at home.

How and Why Do Allergies Develop?

Allergies are your body’s reaction to allergens (particles your body considers foreign), a sign that your immune system is working overtime. The first time your body encounters an allergen, your plasma cells release IgE (immunoglobulin E), an antibody specific to that allergen. IgE attaches to the surface of your mast cells.

Mast cells are found in great numbers in your surface tissues (i.e., those with close proximity to the external environment, such as in your skin and in the mucous membranes of your nose), where they help mediate inflammatory responses. Mast cells release a number of important chemical mediators, one of which is histamine.

So, the second time your body encounters a particular allergen, within a few minutes, your mast cells become activated and release a powerful cocktail of histamine, leukotrienes, and prostaglandins, which trigger the entire cascade of symptoms you associate with allergies: sneezing, runny nose, sore throat, hacking cough, itchy eyes, etc.

Histamine can cause your airways to constrict, like with asthma, or cause blood vessels to become more permeable, leading to fluid leakage or hives. Leukotrienes cause hypersecretion of mucus, which you commonly experience as a runny nose or increased phlegm.

Pollen is an extremely common mast cell activator, but other agents can trigger these processes as well. Mold spores, dust, airborne contaminants, dust mites, pet dander, cockroaches, environmental chemicals, cleaning products, personal care products and foods can all cause allergic reactions. Every person is different in what he or she reacts to. And, just because you haven’t reacted to something in the past doesn’t mean you won’t react to it in the future—you can become sensitized at any point in time.

Alternative Allergy Treatments that Can Work

A recent ABC News report took 10 common “myths and old wives’ tales” to allergists to get feedback on what works and what doesn’t. Included in their list were the following. For the remaining, please see the original article.3 In the following sections, I’ll address a number of other drug-free alternatives:

The MOST Important Allergy ‘Treatment’ You Need to Pay Attention to

While I believe you certainly need to address your diet and could try any of the alternative strategies listed above, if you have asthma, optimizing your vitamin D levels is absolutely crucial. In fact, research suggests that vitamin D deficiency may be aprimary underlying cause of asthma [6]. This means that many are needlessly suffering with a potentially life threatening ailment, since vitamin D deficiency is easily remedied.

Ideally, you’ll want to get your vitamin D from safe sun exposure. Beware that using sunscreen when outdoors effectively shields your skin from making any vitamin D. Another alternative is using a safe tanning bed [7], or if neither of those options are available, an oral vitamin D3 supplement. If you opt for a vitamin D supplement you also need to boost your vitamin K2 [8]. For more information on this, please see this previous article [8].

Whichever way you go, make sure to check your vitamin D levels to make sure you’re within the therapeutic levels of 50-70 ng/ml. If you get your levels to about 60 ng/ml there’s a strong likelihood — especially if you combine it with exercise and balancing out your omega-3 and omega-6 fats as described below — that you will not experience asthma anymore.

Provocation Neutralization Allergy Treatment

Addressing allergies takes a multi-faceted approach that involves optimizing your diet [9], intestinal health, vitamin D levels, and avoiding potential triggers. Typically, allergy sufferers tend to arm themselves with a variety of antihistamine pills, nose sprays and eye drops in anticipation of allergy season. But these drug treatments come with their own set of side effects, and relief is short lived. And it’s been my experience that conventional allergy testing, whether done through the blood or skin, works for only 20 to 30 percent of patients. It is also quite inconvenient, as you need to go to the doctor’s office every week for months or perhaps years, and it can take several years to be effective.

Provocation neutralization (PN) allergy testing and treatment offers many allergy sufferers permanent relief without adverse side effects. The success rate for this approach is about 80 to 90 percent, and you can receive the treatment at home. I offered this effective treatment for many years in my office.

The provocation refers to “provoking a change” and neutralization refers to “neutralizing the reaction caused by provocation.” During provocation-neutralization, a small amount of allergen is injected under your skin to produce a small bump called a “wheal” on the top layers of your skin, and then it is monitored for a reaction. If you have a positive reaction, such as fatigue, headache, or a growth in the size of the wheal, then the allergen is neutralized with diluted injections or with drops that go in your mouth of the same allergen. If you are interested in pursuing PN, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine5 (AAEM) has a list of physicians and offices that are trained in this highly effective and recommended technique.

Sublingual Immunotherapy for Asthma & Allergies

“Desensitizing a person to allergies usually involves a series of injections of small amounts of allergens, but a large review of studies has found that putting allergens under the tongue in a water solution might work just as well,” the New York Times6 recently reported.

A meta-analysis of 63 randomized controlled trials, involving more than 5,130 patients between the ages of four and 74, found strong evidence that sublingual immunotherapy improved asthma symptoms caused by grass, tree pollen, dust mites, ragweed and other substances. The treatment produced a greater than 40 percent improvement in symptoms compared to a placebo, and led to a significant reduction in the use of asthma medicines. Interestingly, Provocation Neutralization technique, described above, has also utilized sublingual allergy treatments for many decades.

The review, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association,7 also found moderate evidence that the oral treatment reduced runny nose and eye inflammation. Local reactions were common, but no life-threatening side effects, such as anaphylaxis, were reported. According to Dr. Daniel Moore,8 the allergy drops used for sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT) are administered daily, or several times per week, over a period of years.

“The immune system of the gastrointestinal tract tends to ‘tolerate’ foreign substances, meaning that it does not respond in an over-active way to swallowed material,” he explains. “…When SLIT is administered into the gastrointestinal tract [via your mouth], the immune system tolerates the allergen, instead of the over-reactivity of the immune system, as with allergic disease. This results in less allergy symptoms when the body is exposed to the allergy source, such as airborne pollen or pet dander… SLIT appears to be effective in the treatment of allergic rhinitis, allergic conjunctivitis and, to a lesser degree, allergic asthma.”

Additional Safe and Effective Strategies to Treat Allergies and Asthma

As already mentioned, addressing your diet and optimizing both your gut health and vitamin D levels should be at the top of your list if you’re suffering from allergies and/or asthma. Here are a few other basic strategies that can help treat the root of the problem as well.

Below are several other foods and herbs you might want to try:

There is Hope if You Suffer From Allergies

If you’re one of the tens of millions of allergy sufferers in the US, know there is plenty you can do besides lining the pockets of the pharmaceutical industry. Eating a wholesome diet based on unprocessed, ideally organic and/or locally grown foods, including fermented foods, along with optimizing your vitamin D levels and correcting your omega-3 to omega-6 ratio, will form the foundation upon which your immune system can function in an optimal manner.

For short-term relief of symptoms, you could give acupuncture a try, and irrigate your sinuses with a neti pot. There are also a number of foods and herbs you can try to alleviate symptoms, which are listed above. For more long-term relief, you may want to consider provocation neutralization treatment, or sublingual allergy drops, which work just as well as inhalers.

Read the full article here: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/04/18/allergy-season.aspx [1]