Spring is such a lovely time of year with sunny days, blooming flowers, budding trees and birds chirping. But millions of Americans suffer from seasonal allergies and suffer from wheezing, sneezing, runny noses, itchy eyes and other indignities. Even staying inside won’t necessarily cure the problem because indoor irritants such as pet dander, mold, dust mites and scented cleaning products can all trigger allergic reactions.
Your nasal passages and the entire mechanism of the lungs (from the large bronchial tubes to the alveolae, which are tiny sacs that transfer oxygen into the blood stream with every breath) are lined with mucous membranes, whose function is to produce mucus to coat the offending particulates (pollen, diesel fumes, wood smoke, dander, etc.) thus reducing irritation. However, when the exposure is large (spring is exuberant) the resulting amount of mucus production can be overwhelming and trigger an immune response which manifests as all the not-fun symptoms listed above.
Many who suffer with allergies use over-the-counter (or prescription strength) anti-histamines such as Benadryl, Zyrtec, Flonase and the like but these medicines are very drying. They not only dry up the mucous membranes making them less runny, but they also dry your skin, your lungs and your brain. Chronic long-term antihistamine use has been linked to more rapid dementia progression.
Luckily, there are many natural supplements that can reduce the suffering wrought by seasonal allergens without drying medication. First, know there are foods that are known to potentially exacerbate allergy misery. The way to assess if this is true for you is to avoid the food for at least 8 days (2 weeks is more ideal, to clear the backlog in your system) and see if your allergy response is lessened. If yes, try reintroducing the food and see what happens, to confirm that it irritates your mucous membranes. The main potentially problematic foods are dairy (huge – this is the No. 1 food allergen irritating mucous membranes), sometimes eggs, or shellfish, peanuts, wheat, chocolate, citrus fruits and artificial food colorants.
Supplements that will can greatly reduce the seasonal allergy response include glutathione and N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC) which are molecularly related and both potent anti-oxidants for the lung; often helpful even with pronounced asthma. NAC is much less expensive and almost as effective. If you have sticky mucus or congested airways and nasal passages, 1200 mg at bedtime will thin mucus, making it easier to expel (instead of clogging up your sinuses). You can use a Neti pot preventively at the end of the day to wash the particulate matter out of your nasal passages, but once you are congested the Neti pot is not very useful. Neti pots come in all shapes and sizes – there is a rubber one made by Neil Med that you can keep in the shower and just squirt a saline solution up your nose every day during allergy season. Butterbur, a root more traditionally used for migraines, is also very effective at treating allergies. It helps improve airflow through the nose by inhibiting the activity of leukotriene, which causes airway constriction. Stinging nettle roots and leaves, which will be starting to come up soon, have been used for thousands of years to treat symptoms of allergies and other inflammatory ailments. Modern studies show that extracts of stinging nettle can reduce sneezing, itching and watery eyes in folks with hay fever and can be more effective than over-the-counter medications. Nettles work similarly to antihistamines by blocking the body’s histamine production.
Histamine (the naturally occurring chemical behind all this suffering) is mostly made and stored in specialized cells called mast cells. An effective approach to damping down allergic responses is to stabilize and strengthen the mast cell walls so they are much less likely to rupture and flood your body with histamine. Bio-flavonoids in general are brilliant at this job (any food that naturally has a yellow or orange color – so eat a carrot, or yam, or tangerine, or squash every day) but the specific bioflavonoid for mast cell wall support is quercitin. Quercitin is found in the skins of apples, onions, grapefruit, black tea and red wine, but can also be bought in capsules. A recent study concluded that people who took a quercetin supplement had a 70% reduction in sneezing, stuffy nose, itchy eyes and other allergy symptoms. Turmeric, another deep yellow medicinal root remedy, is also an effective anti-inflammatory that can be incorporated into cooking daily (“golden latte” anyone?) or taken in capsule form.
Wishing you a sneeze-less spring!
Emily Kane is a naturopathic doctor based in Juneau. Contact her online at http://www.dremilykane.com.
