Breath Freer & Stay Healthy through the Seattle Pollen Season
- “My seasonal allergies are driving me crazy!!! Is there anything I can do?”
This is an all too common frustration that I hear in the spring and summer. Actually, there are many things you can do to breathe more freely and have some quality of life during the hay days of pollen production.
- Are you ready for some healthier alternatives to allergy medications taken daily, to suppress your unmanageable allergic histamine responses?
Many of us take for granted that we can comfortably breathe year round but for others, the welcoming warmth of spring’s sunshine stimulates a full orchestra of pollens stepping up their dissemination everywhere, wreaking havoc on those who are allergic to specific pollens.
Some conifers, alder wood, & birch pollens are some of the worst offenders in the spring, with grass pollens following in June and ragweed in the late summer. In the winter months, reactive people respond to molds, dust, and animal dander.
Natural Seasonal Allergy Relief for Seattle
- What really works when you are in crisis mode with an allergy flare up?
Let’s look first at what causes so much inflammatory responses. When you are exposed to allergens such as dust, mold, specific pollens, animal dander, and even certain food – your immune system kicks into action and releases histamines.
What are Histamines?
- Histamines are responsible for many allergic responses in your body/mind.
- They are liberally distributed within your lungs, sinuses, brain, and digestive tract in an allergic response.
There are practical strategies that can help your body respond healthfully to allergens. Read on to discover simple and deeper rooted solutions to spring, summer, and fall pollens.
6 Natural Remedies to Survive Allergy Season in Seattle
1. Reduce Your Exposure
You may want to limit your exposure outdoors when pollen counts are highest. These times are early mornings and evenings or on sunny warm days.
2. NAET Allergy Desensitizing:
This healing modality addresses the underlying core issues, reprogramming the body/mind that has mis-interpreted dust, pollen, and common foods to be an intruder to the body’s defense systems. Allergy desensitizing treatments reset programs in the nervous system, re-acclimating long standing allergens to become friend, not foe; in other words to reclaim them as normal substances in the body.
In the case of pollen reactivity, local pollens are collected on a wet towel. Each patient is tested & treated with these samples, given customized desensitizing treatments to pollen, grasses, and weeds that they breathe and are exposed to locally. This energetic form of medicine is revolutionary in its approach, providing long lasting results for allergy prevention care. Individuals who have acute an persistent pollen reactions, may need a tune up treatment in the exacerbated pollen season, but once the initial series of treatments are completed, the body/mind immune system keeps this reprogramming message in its innate intelligence.
3. Reduce Histamine Reactions in Your Body:
Bioflavonoids & quercetin are both members of the Vitamin C family and are helpful aides in stabilizing the mast cells, so they don’t flood your tissues with histamine production. Keep in mind that excess histamines are the troublemakers that make your lungs, nose, & eyes to itch & swell up, creating runny noses.
If you’re challenged with pollen reactivity, it would be worth your time with getting muscle tested, to see if you are absorbing vitamin C efficiently. In my clinical practice, I’ve observed 90% of my patients with acute and chronic seasonal allergy reactions to be challenged with vitamin C assimilation. This is an essential nutrient for healthy immune system and the adrenal glands to function optimally during heavy pollen season. More efficient assimilation of Vitamin C is one of the first treatments that I do for seasonal allergy sufferers in aiding the body/ mind to re-acclimatize to foreign proteins, like pollen.
Quercetin & D-Hist: are well researched bioflavonoids that reduce histamine reactions. To make sizable dents in the overproduction of histamines, quercetin needs to be consumed regularly during the pollen season. You’ll find several capsulated quercetin products at your local health food stores or Super Supplement on line. One of the very best of the quercetin herbal products is called D-Hist offered in a capsule form for adults or chewable for children. It works as an alternative to the drowsy producing antihistamines during the worst of the pollen reactivity. Consult your acupuncturist or naturopath doctor for a customized dosage that’s suitable for you.
4. Netti Pot Irrigation or Saline Nasal Sprays:
Many of you are already familiar with daily nasal douching to gently flush pollens out of your nasal passages. Flushing with distilled or sterile water (1 cup to ¼ tsp salt) thins out accumulated mucus that otherwise holds onto allergens in the sinuses. Please use distilled water, not tap water for nasal douching. Clogged nasal cavities serve as a breeding ground for respiratory viruses and bacteria. I recommend adding a small amount of golden seal or echinacea in the sweetened glycerin form rather not the alcohol base. Both of these herbs have anti- bacterial and anti-viral properties.
5. Dietary Changes:
Avoid foods that you know you are sensitive to. During the heavy months of pollen production is when you want to be more cautionary with eating foods that aggravate your immune system as you are putting a double load on your body’s immune system. Acute sinusitis or asthma flare-ups can coincide when the pollen count is highest tied in when you are consuming foods that you are not digesting well or you may not be aware that you are food sensitive to. You can be tested by a naturopathic doctor through a blood workup for environmental allergies and food sensitivities.
6. HEPA Filter/Quality Air Purifiers
Are very helpful in cutting down the pollen count in the air you breathe in your home many seasonal allergies suffers notice a measurable difference with the HEPA air filters in their bedroom when they are sleeping.
Other Potential Helpful Treatments:
Stinging nettle, a common herb found along streams is effective in a freeze dried, tincture or tea form when taken 3-4 times a day. Nettle has both anti-inflammatory and anti-histamine properties. It is best to start taking nettle herbs 1-2 months before the pollen count gets high. Similarly, raw honey that is cultivated by bees from your local area is another remedy to desensitize you to spring, summer & fall pollens. Consuming bee pollen or honey from the comb is best consumed daily a couple of months before the spring pollens begin circulating.
Acupuncture & Chinese Herbs Used Together:
Some Chinese herbs are very effective in addressing the acute symptoms & others work more for the root cause of chronic sinusitis & allergic responses. Raw, freeze dried or patent herbs are utilized during the allergy season. Please consult a licensed acupuncturist/Chinese herbalist to discern what herbal formulas can be tailored to your seasonal allergy challenges.