Cure Chronic Allergies Without Shots or Drugs
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Most of us are familiar with allergies to some extent. We know that we seem to be born with them in our genes, whether we suffered from them ever since we were children or we seem to suddenly develop them later in life. However many people are unaware that we may naturally lose our allergies over time or that we can potentially intentionally cure them.
In this post, as with any other at DonnyPodcast.com, no medical advice is given. Do not take anything written here as medical advice. Only take medical advice from your doctor(s). What will be shared in this post, however, are true ways that people can treat their allergies and maybe even get rid of them completely based on medical facts. I'll even share with you a few very simple methods that are very inexpensive (practically free) that are also amazingly powerful. Whether or not you should attempt any of the things discussed in this article is completely up to you and your medical doctor's advice for you.
Allergy Therapies
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Since the 1930s (Bostock), we have had the means to reduce the severity of allergies. One of the most well-known forms of allergy therapy is allergy shots, also known as subcutaneous immunotherapy. As illustrated in this news report, allergy shots are injections of a diluted allergen to help a person's body learn to deal with an allergen in a less severe way. These shots are often meant to be taken on a weekly basis for 3 to 5 years to achieve the desired result.
Another form of immunotherapy is transdermal allergy therapy. This is, like many other medicines, given through the skin: a patch is applied to give the patient a safe dose of an allergen to help their body adapt to it and handle it more appropriately.
There are even oral immunotherapies, where pills, other edible medicines, or even small doses of the offending food provide the patient with a light dose of the allergen. This way of attenuating the immune response to an allergen comes with its own risks. Some sources warn that it is possible that a person may need to administer an epinephrine autoinjector, AKA an EpiPen, as a result of oral allergy therapy. This is due to the possibility of triggering anaphylactic shock when attempting this therapy with edible doses.
Not to be confused with oral immunotherapy, sublingual immunotherapy is where allergen extracts are put into liquid or tablets which are placed under the tongue for absorption. This is generally good for environmental allergens, such as pollen and dust.
At Home Immunotherapy
Traditionally, since the 1930s, there were really only 2 ways to try to get therapy for your allergies: see a doctor for a safe dosage regimen of the allergen, or expose yourself to the allergen and hope you survived. Today, as is the case with a lot of medicines, there are at-home immunotherapy options. A quick Google search will introduce you to Curex, for example. I am not an affiliate of Curex, but that company is one of the top results when you search for at-home immunotherapy.
If you've been suffering from allergies, especially chronic allergies, then you may have already done some research and none of the above may be new to you. I wrote all the above because, to some people, it may be surprising the options that are available to help with allergies. Some people may think that they are simply stuck with their allergies. But, none of that is why I've decided to write this post. Because of an experience that I had years ago, I realized that some things are very underrated, very inexpensive, yet very powerful in regard to getting allergy relief.
Diagnosed With Seasonal Allergies
That may seem like comedic hyperbole, but that was exactly how things felt. I was constantly gagging and coughing. Sometimes I'd cough so hard that I would accidentally vomit. It seemed to me like the cause was something environmental. I only ever had one allergy that I ever knew about and it was an allergy to rabbit dander. But, simply being outside or doing normal day-to-day things would never have me feeling this bad.
When things got bad enough that I thought I would suffocate, choking on my own throat, I went to the VA medical center to get a diagnosis. The doctor did little more than flash a light into my ears and mouth and then say, "Welp, sounds like seasonal allergies. I'm going to prescribe you some steroids and antihistamines."
What season was allergic to, by the way? I had this allergy all year. I didn't take the steroids because that could actually weaken my body's ability to deal with allergies if I came off the steroids, plus they could cause brittle tendons. I didn't take the antihistamines because, as a holistic healer, I know that it's important to get the root cause of the problem, not just drug away the symptoms. So, I kept the drugs in the medicine cabinet as a last resort but decided to try other means first.
Curing Chronic Allergies
Neti Pot
Photo From FDA.gov
With no good answers, and basically out of desperation, I decided to do something that really didn't seem to make a lot of sense. I thought I would rinse with a neti pot to see if that would somehow calm my chronic cough and ease the irritation in my throat. To my surprise, it made a world of difference. I went days with hardly a symptom at all after I first rinsed with the neti pot.
This is logical because allergens can get trapped in our mucus and continue to irritate us until those allergens are removed (rn.com). I found over time that this is a good way to at least prevent a lot of daily irritation because I could go almost a week between rinses without the same amount of irritation. By the way, I would personally recommend an actual neti pot, rather than a squirt bottle. I've tried both and the tilting action required to rinse with the neti pot is actually superior because it helps to rinse deeper into the sinus. With the squirt bottle, you can't really tilt much or it will prevent the flow of the saline solution. Below is a photo of a squirt bottle you may find at a grocery store or a drug store.
Breathing Exercises for Allergy Relief
Bhramari Pranayama | Humming Bee Breath
As you may already know from previous posts, for several years now, I've been a big fan of the powerful healing properties of breathwork. People like Wim Hof are great resources regarding this because Wim is not only a living testament to the power of pranayama, but he also allows scientists to study him and his methods to figure out why his practices are so effective.
As you would learn from reading my post about how specific breathing exercises improve your immunity, certain breathing exercises are comprehensive in helping people prevent illness because of the many different aspects of our immunity that these exercises affect. These respiratory exercises not only boost your immune system in fighting off pathogens, but they also reduce the aggression with which your general immune response would attack your body if the specific immune response fails to rid your body of the offending pathogens.
What that essentially means is that it can help your body get rid of the germs while you are asymptomatic (before you start to feel miserable) and also reduce or prevent the symptoms of an illness if your body has to take more drastic measures to fight an illness. At its core, we really don't feel miserable because of pathogens; we get achy and feel terrible as a result of our general immune response. This means that if this response is altered to be less harsh, we won't feel so bad when we're sick (if we feel sick at all), yet our body will still eliminate the threat, resulting in an apparent superhuman resilience to illnesses.
Naturally, in addition to the neti pot rinses I was doing on a semi-weekly basis, I would take time to do breathing exercises each day that I was feeling my symptoms starting to flare up. The trick to this was that doing these breathing exercises in the wrong environment could backfire. However, over the several months that I was doing this, no matter what environment I was in, I never got anything other than relief from my condition. The irritation was reduced. My breathing became more free and clear. I felt less scratchiness and less pain. This relief would often last for hours as a result of a mere 3 minutes of focused breathing exercises.
Get Allergy Relief by Changing Your Environment
A flock of Ibis Birds
The neti pot and the breathing exercises were a huge help. Without those methods, I would have been chronically coughing with an already inflamed throat every day of the week, probably doing irreparable damage to my vocal cords in the process. Probably the biggest gain from those remedies was that I learned that there was in fact something in the environment that was causing my allergic reactions.
My doctor said "seasonal allergies." But, this allergy was affecting me all year. Was I suddenly allergic to every season of the year after basically being allergy free my whole life? I was one step closer to getting to the source of the problem. But what was the source? How can I get rid of it? Would I have to do what many people do and surrender to a life-long regimen of taking drugs on a regular basis just to be able to tolerate everyday life?
Another clue I stumbled upon was that once I was at my workplace for more than a couple of hours, the irritation began to subside. About the only thing that still caused any pain or discomfort was my own coughing and clearing my throat. I noticed when working with therapies that contained menthol, eucalyptus, or camphor that my symptoms would stay entirely away for hours; even the irritation caused by my coughing would go away to the point that I'd have total relief for a while.
At that point, I realized that something about being at my job seemed to rid me of the allergen. I thought it might be the AC system and its filters helping me out. The inflammation caused by all the strain of expectoration seemed to be the only factor remaining while I was at work and herbal remedies seemed to take care of all that.
Moving Got Rid of My Allergies
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In my next blog post, I intend to cover in more detail how raising my vibrations caused me to be uprooted and moved into a much better living situation than what I was dealing with previously. These improvements happened again and again despite the fact that I didn't earn much more money during any of that time. But for now, the key point is that I ended up moving into another house that was only a few miles away from where I was living before, and within weeks, all of the respiratory symptoms of my allergies went away. The change was so dramatic that people who knew me would even ask me "what happened to your cough?"
This experience confirmed to me something that I had long suspected: I was being irritated by mold. The house I was staying in before was overseen by a very lazy landlord who also had some very unhealthy demands for the upkeep of his house. He never wanted the thermostat to be set to less than 76 degrees Fahrenheit if he was going to allow the AC to be on at all. In that guy's house, there was a small hole where screws used to fasten a towel rack to the bathroom wall; I always thought that this was the perfect recipe to breed mold within the walls of that house. At one point mold was visible and spreading throughout my closet. I lost half of my belonging in that closet due to the mold and was able to launder and salvage the rest. Never in my life before have I ever been in such close contact with mold and I never knew that mold would bother my respiratory tract at all.
In the new place that I moved to, one of the tenants in the house preferred the air conditioning to be set to 69 or 70 degrees, especially during the night. It was very comfortable and it was only a matter of weeks after I moved into that place that my respiratory symptoms all disappeared for good.
Once that tenant moved out, the landlords of that house started to demand that the AC be set to a much higher temperature or even shut off altogether for long periods of time throughout the day. Not surprisingly, it only took months of that warm temperature in Florida's humid climate to begin to produce mold within that house, as well.
Moldy Bathroom Vent
The biggest takeaway I got from all this experience with what was diagnosed by my doctor as "year-round seasonal allergies" is that when I talked to numerous people about these issues, they seemed to readily understand what I was talking about and they would often quickly explain to me that it's a very common problem and that the mold spore count is high and that all the rain we've recently had could easily be what had been triggering it.
So, it had occurred to me that many people are probably suffering from the exact same "seasonal allergy" without even realizing that the source had been right at home with them the entire time. Therefore, they would seem to have allergies all year round that they just accept as a fact of life, resulting in the regular consumption of completely unnecessary drugs.
Keep Yourself Healthy by Keeping Your House Healthy
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This may be one of those very common suggestions that we all take for granted to the point that we may not even realize that it could very well be the answer to our "hay fever." But, also, I've met far too many people who are missing some very major points in regard to maintaining their house. The following addresses some of the most common mistakes I've seen homeowners make in regard to maintaining a healthy house.
The Right Temperature to Protect Your House and Your Health
Photo by Bianca Ackermann on Unsplash
In the past several years, I've met several people who had similar policies in regard to how they set their air conditioning systems at home and they all had similar problems with their houses and their health. These people all preferred that their thermostat was set to be 76 degrees Fahrenheit or warmer, and they preferred to turn their AC units off for long periods of time throughout most days of the week.
Health problems these people all suffered from included "year-round seasonal allergies," bacterial infections, and skin and/or nail fungus. They all had the mistaken belief that you don't need AC because all you have to do is turn on a fan, and it would keep you cool.
Fan Fiction
Let's examine the scenario:
It's 93 degrees outside and humid. As such, you have every window shut because your only hope is to seal off the hot air from coming in and hope that the house's insulation can help maintain cool temperatures for a pretty long time. However, eventually, it does get very hot in your house, 80+ degrees, and humid. Now, some brilliant armchair scientist tells you not to turn on the AC, but to rely on ceiling fans because blowing hot air all around the room will somehow "cool you off."
The only way fans can cool you off is by blowing relatively cool air over your body, thereby removing some heat energy from your body. In addition, what makes fans as effective as they possibly can be, is a differential in humidity. In other words, you as a human sweat when you get hot. When a fan blows on your sweaty skin, it helps to take heat energy away much more rapidly. There within lies a major problem with the whole fan thing! You have to be sweating and have your bare skin exposed to the moving air to really get any good impact from a fan. It is very unsanitary and dangerous to your health to be sweating in your bed or sweating in your clothes all day, in the first place.
Going back to the "differential in humidity" concept, if you are in a humid environment such as Florida, even sweat barely helps you. This is because the heat energy the air carries is significantly more due to the added mass of the humidity in the air.
The Giant Fish Tank
Photo by Sadiq Nafee on Unsplash
Consider this:
Have you ever owned a pet fish? Not just any fish, but a fish that needed a specific temperature range to expect to live a healthy life in its tank? If you ever had a fish like that in a room that would be too cold for the fish, then you likely needed a heater for the tank. The heater for a fish tank is often just a probe that gets warm. This probe can hang in the tank or be suction-cupped to the tank's wall.
Either way, the whole concept is that the heat probe doesn't really get hot; it gets warm. In a fish tank, the water is always moving. It's being filtered. It's being pumped. Essentially, the water is constantly blowing all around the tank.
This water, in this cold room scenario, initially is much cooler than the heat probe. Over time, the water gets heated to the exact same temperature as the fish tank's heater and it can even get hotter as more heat energy continues to build. But, the heat probe will switch off when the target temperature is reached.
When you rely solely on a ceiling fan on a hot day to "cool you off," you're effectively becoming that fish tank heater. The air in the room is the tank's water. The fan is the circulatory system in the fish tank that is constantly sending air at you to be warmed by your own body until eventually, the whole room is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit and climbing.
But, unlike the heat probe, your body won't switch off its heat production when a specific temperature is met. Nor will it matter how much you sweat when the humid air in your room becomes so warm and moist that it's useless. You will not get relief from relying solely on a fan. All of that makes sense, anyway. After all, that's how convection ovens and air fryers work: they continuously send hot air to your food until it's edible.
What is the Best Temperature To Keep Your Thermostat At?
Now that all the fallacies and falsehoods regarding the utilization of fans for "cooling" have been addressed, it's time to focus on the facts that matter in regard to keeping your house and your family safe and healthy. If you look at the above image, you might understand that the thermostat is switched off, the internal temperature is 76 degrees Fahrenheit, and the humidity is 63%. This photo was taken on a cool winter day in Florida when the temperature outside was 65 degrees.
Preventing Mold
One major problem for human health as well as a common cause of major damage to houses is mold. Mold can have serious and even deadly consequences for people who have to live with it on a daily basis for long periods of time. The price of mold remediation for a house can easily cost tens of thousands of dollars (LawnStarter.com). Therefore, mold is definitely a key pathogen to prevent in one's house.
It turns out, there are a few simple steps we can all take to prevent mold. Mold grows most easily in temperatures between 76 and 86 degrees Fahrenheit (MoldRemediation.io). Mold does not grow well in humidity below 50% (CDC.gov). It's also well-known that mold does not like well-circulated air. Therefore, in regard to airflow, it's best to use exhaust systems that blow humid air out of your house and circulate good-quality air throughout your house.
The good news is, every single one of the above factors for mold prevention can be addressed by simply utilizing your air conditioning unit. It's not just a cooling system. It improves the condition of the air by filtering it; central air conditioning systems reduce the humidity; and they also adjust the temperature. Preventing mold is as simple as keeping your AC on and keeping the temperature set to 75 degrees or cooler. In my opinion, it's best to stick to a setting of 74 degrees or cooler due to the fact that most AC units will allow the temperature to exceed the setting by at least 1 degree before they kick in and begin to cool the air.
Preventing Other Pathogens
Mold is a major problem for a house. Besides the serious health problems mold can bring, it can also cause extremely expensive damage to homes. To deal with other pathogens, such as viruses, bacteria, and seasonal allergens (like pollen), some good housekeeping is the best thing people can do.
- Clean high-touch surfaces every day and after visitors have left.
- Vacuum fabric surfaces regularly and dispose of the dust in a safe manner.
- Launder your clothes with the appropriate detergents and at the right temperature.
- Be sure to thoroughly dry clothing as moisture is the perfect recipe for mold and bacteria to bloom.
- Clean other surfaces once it is apparent that they have become dirty.
- *Be sure to use soap and water or other appropriate cleaning solutions depending on the type of surface being cleaned.
- Keep a cool home!
The Best Room Temperature to Prevent Germs
Photo by Martha Dominguez de Gouveia on Unsplash
Anyone who's had a science class in high school, or who has ever had a microbiology class, has probably learned that viruses and bacteria perform differently depending upon the temperature of the environment in which they are living. The most common pathogens that tend to threaten human health can live in temperature ranges between 40 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Does this mean that there is no practical way to inhibit the growth of bacteria and virus populations?
Thankfully, and logically, the same temperatures that are comfortable for normal, healthy humans are also the same temperatures that common pathogens find inhospitable. Though bacteria and viruses can thrive in temperatures below 70 degrees, the reason why hospitals keep their thermostats down to about 68 degrees is that this temperature is very unfriendly for germs, yet very comfortable and healthy for a healthy person. Temperatures between 68 and 70 degrees are cool enough that people won't soak their clothes with sweat, yet it's warm enough that their own body heat will prevent them from feeling cold. This creates the perfect range to reduce moisture on the skin, reduce indoor humidity, and also maintain a temperature that inhibits the growth of pathogens.
Summary
In many cases, when people are diagnosed with seasonal or chronic allergies, they actually are allergic to one or more seasonal allergens. People with these allergies may be able to reduce their symptoms through some of the holistic wellness methods expounded upon in this post. However, in an alarmingly high quantity of cases, people do not have a chronic or seasonal allergy; they are suffering allergic reactions to allergens that are proliferating in their own houses.
Thankfully, the most effective things people can do to prevent these pathogens from thriving in their houses are also some of the simplest:
- Keep your thermostat below 76 degrees, and keep the AC on to maintain a low humidity.
- Ideally, keep the thermostat between 68 and 72 degrees.
- Keep the humidity below 50%. Central air conditioning does this as part of its regular job.
- Do not try to "maintain good airflow" by opening a window in a humid climate. You're only inviting more moisture and warmth into the house, resulting in an environment that mold and bacteria love.
- AC professionals recommend changing out your AC filters once every 45 days.
- Fans can help HVAC units move air throughout the house, but used by themselves, fans do nothing for the air temperature, and they do not help with humidity except in the case of fans located in exhaust vents installed in humid rooms.
- Clean surfaces regularly with the appropriate cleaning methods.
- Many people will be surprised that their "chronic allergies" will go away once they put this information into practice. In many cases, people will find that what they have been allergic to all this time was not the outside environment, but the pathogens that were developing indoors.
I hope you found this information to be very helpful. If you've achieved good results from making use of this information, please let me know in the comments.
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Hardcopy Works Cited:
Bostock J. "Case of a periodical affection of the eyes and chest. Med Chir Trans. 1819;10:161.
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