Natural Cures for Seasonal Allergies

I’m currently sitting in my office with the season’s last batch of sweet peas in a large bowl on my desk. For those of you who aren’t familiar with sweet peas, they have an intoxicating fragrance. They have colors ranging from pastel to vibrant purples and burgundy, and grow on vines that will top 6 feet. And I used to be deathly allergic to them. In fact, there was a time as recently as a few years ago where being within smelling distance of these, my absolute favorite flowers, would have put me into an asthmatic crisis.

Taking myself back six years, my home was on a local college garden symphony tour. Over 300 people came through my yard and were able to enjoy gardenia, wisteria, stephanotis, sweet olive, rose, magnolia, heliotrope, and as they left the yard, my sweet pea blossoms. If you know anything about gardening, you will be immediately aware of the fact that my yard is filled with highly fragrant specimens. As for roses alone I have over 100 individual bushes. I love my yard, and I love my gardens. And there I sat, window closed, watching people wandering through my yard; while they got to enjoy the fragrant gardens, I was locked up in my home.

That day I made a decision: whatever it took, I was going to find a way to eliminate my seasonal allergies. I had already tried desensitization, a.k.a. allergy shots. This got me nowhere. At the time that I was locked up in my home, I had been on nine full rounds of steroids in six months, was doing nebulizer breathing treatments up to four times a day, and was using two inhalers as well as a rescue inhaler. Plus, my doctor had just prescribed an oral medication to add to my daily regimen. Meanwhile, my allergies were still causing urgent care and ER trips at least twice monthly.

Within 30 days of making that decision I was off all of my medication and haven’t had so much as an aspirin since. Using acupuncture, EFT, hypnosis and several holistic health remedies, I was able to eliminate all of my seasonal allergies. There are still a couple of items that I am sensitive to, but now I know how to take care of that as well. So here I sit with my prior crisis causing favorite flowers and absolutely no sneezing, no itchy watery eyes, no wheezing – and I feel great.

Here are five holistic remedies/treatments for dealing with seasonal allergies.

1. Vitamin D — 2000 IU of vitamin D has been proven to have anti-inflammatory effects within the lungs (British Journal of Pharmacology September 2008).

2. Echinacea — One of the most effective immune-enhancing supplements you can take. In study after study it has clearly demonstrated an ability to increase the production of a number of T-cells and their distribution in the blood.

3. Turmeric — In a number of studies, this is proven to prevent the release of histamine.

4. Stinging Nettle — Nettle also inhibits the body’s ability to produce histamine.

5. Neti Pot — This is my personal favorite. I started with twice a day treatments. I currently am on a regimen of once daily with the exception of days when the winds have kicked up or there’s pine pollen in the air; on those days it’s twice-daily. So what is a neti pot? Well, it looks like a small Aladdin’s lamp. You fill it with a mix of kosher salt, baking soda and warm water. This is a sinus lavage. This is not the saline spray that you gingerly squeeze into your nostril. This is a full flushing of your nose and sinus cavity. By simply removing dust, dander, pollen, molds, bacteria, viruses and allergens from port of entry, I have not had a cold, flu, or even the mildest of allergy attacks in years – to say nothing of severe asthmatic crisis.

So next time something is in bloom that has you reaching for a bottle of medication, consider a natural alternative.