Stop Seasonal Allergies Before They Stop You!
April 2019
Spring means the grass is growing, trees are blooming, and flowers are popping out of the ground. For some people this will also mean seasonal allergies. Why does the return of grass, flowers and other signs of spring mean something so torturous for so many? Your body and immune system has to deal with exposure to assaults that it doesn’t have to at other times of the year. Understanding that can help you stop seasonal allergies and the uncomfortable effects.
Many will test to find out what they are allergic to but… great, now what? If you’re allergic to grass, you can’t avoid grass. We don’t, and can’t realistically, live in bubbles. Some will try antihistamines with minimal help, and those come with their own side effects. That’s why looking at the immune system as a whole is important. The body is like a Swiss Watch, with everything in the body working together like the gears of a watch. Instead of testing for what you are allergic to, test for how the body is functioning to see what you can control. Why?
The Immune System is Like a Bucket
Think of your immune system like a bucket. Over time your bucket gets filled with lots of extra stuff, and unfortunately modern life brings even more of that extra stuff. There are many toxins we are exposed to in every day items like plastics, cleaning supplies and even your shampoo. If the different gears of the body aren’t functioning properly it can contribute to your immune system’s bucket. Once that bucket gets full, you can get an overflowing immune response because you’re reacting to more things. You want to keep that bucket from getting full.
I know this personally. I used to suffer from horrible seasonal allergies. I was totally unaware of what can contribute to my immune system’s bucket, and that it could manifest in pretty uncomfortable seasonal allergies. So, what can you control to minimize and stop seasonal allergies? You want to remove toxins, traumas and thoughts that stress the body causing increased inflammation. Let’s cover the top 6 that I see in clinical practice.
6 Ways to Address and Stop Seasonal Allergies
Reduce Your Toxins
Like I pointed out earlier, toxins really fill up the bucket and we get exposed to a lot of them. It’s important to reduce your exposure by eating organic, choosing safer cleaning supplies, and eliminating other ways your body comes into contact with toxins. If your toxin bucket is really full, your body may have a hard time detoxing. It might be time to consider a detox, so your body is ready when seasonal allergies really hit. Check out this article to know if your body is ready.
Don’t Eat Inflammatory Foods
Inflammatory foods can increase your body’s overall inflammation, which will make it harder for your body’s immune system to respond appropriately. Everyone should avoid wheat, soy, dairy and hydrogenated oils, which are very inflammatory foods. Dairy is also highly mucus-producing, which can increase your allergic response and be very troublesome.
It’s Easier to Control Food Allergies than Seasonal Allergies
Some foods that are totally healthy for some can be highly inflammatory for others. That’s why it’s important to get your food allergies tested. Once you get those food allergies tested, you need to avoid ALL of your food allergies. Food allergies is, hands down, one of the most important ways to reduce your inflammation and keep from filling that immune bucket.
Support Digestion and Stomach Acid
This isn’t an automatic fix, but you can help your body as you remove your food allergies. It’s not always easy at first. When you have a food allergy what is your body reacting to? The proteins in that food! If we fully break down the proteins, then that same protein isn’t going to trigger that immune reaction. You can minimize food allergies by ensuring good stomach acidity. Make sure you aren’t taking any medications or over-the-counter drugs that reduce your stomach acid. Adding apple cider vinegar can help your digestion, and the acidity of your stomach, which can help heal your gut. That leads us to our next one.
Heal Your Leaky Gut
Leaky gut is very common and can lead to many conditions. Leaky gut is an indication of how bad your allergic response is going to be. If your gut is bad your allergies will be too because of the close connection between the gut and immune response. So pay attention to your gut! It’s a good indicator of how well off you are going to be at preventing an allergic response.
Get Adjusted So Your Body is Ready for Seasonal Allergies
Make sure to support your nervous system so it can tolerate the changing environment, and any changes to the immune system. Get a chiropractic adjustment! Remember the Swiss Watch Principle. The nervous system and immune system work so closely together that you can’t separate them. If you get the nervous system adapting better, then the immune system’s going to be able to respond more appropriately.
Support Your Body and Stop Seasonal Allergies
We can’t stop the grass from growing and the trees from blooming. Even if we could, would we want to? There is a better way and that’s to take control of what gets dumped into your immune bucket. There are some things you can’t address, and others that you can to stop seasonal allergies. Drugs and avoidance aren’t the ideal solution to stop seasonal allergies. The best way is to identify what you can control and address that so there is margin in your immune system bucket. That way your body can deal with grass, dust and pollen that you can’t avoid.
Written by Dr. Greg Abbott