The Allergy Blues

by Michelle Corey, C.N.W.C.

Sneezing, sniffling, itchy, watery eyes, rashes. Does it all sound too familiar? If you’re someone who suffers from chronic allergies, you know how miserable symptoms like these can make you feel. Allergies rob a woman of her vitality and creative life force!

 

But why do people have allergies in the first place? Even though one out of every five Americans today suffer from them, and even more from sensitivities such as gluten intolerance, modern medicine still can’t seem to figure out why so many individuals are reacting intensely to their environments. Instead, doctors these days are quick to prescribe medications for their patients simply to mask the symptoms. Sadly, many women rely on prescription and over the counter medications for years, yet their conditions never improve. Benadryl, Claritin and Allegra have become common household names.

 

The truth is that allergies and sensitivities are your body’s way of communicating to you that something is amiss. Chronic allergies almost always accompany other health issues. Look closely and you will begin to see a pattern between your allergic symptoms, what you eat and your overall health.

 

If you see these patterns, that is good news! It means that you are getting right to the core of the problem. It also means that there is an easy way to treat and permanently improve the condition of your allergies holistically, without the use of drugs. In essence, that’s what our diet programs are all about. Most women on our program find relief from allergies (even ones they’ve had all their lives) after just a few weeks on the program!

Knowledge is power! So first let’s talk a little about how symptoms of allergies and sensitivities arise in the first place and their links to other health conditions. Then we can discuss how you can find relief from your allergies naturally and permanently.

 

THE TRUTH ABOUT ALLERGIES AND SENSITIVITIES
What they Are and How to Get Relief

 

Simply put, an allergy is an over-reaction of the body’s immune system. When this reaction occurs, the body responds as if it is under attack. It releases antibodies that trigger inflammation – regardless of whether the allergens are harmless or not.

In general, there are three types of allergic responses:

• Acute allergic reactions: Although rare – these are the most dangerous of all the allergic reactions and can even be fatal. (We’ve all heard of someone who is allergic to bee stings or shellfish). These types of reactions almost always require medical treatment.

• Chronic allergies: These happen regularly in a response to a specific allergen (such as pollen, dust mites, and mold etc.) and commonly result in hay fever symptoms or skin symptoms such as rashes or hives.

• Subclinical allergies: These are the trickiest to solve, because the symptoms are transient and result in seemingly disconnected symptoms that can be difficult to recognize as an allergic response. Examples of subclinical symptoms are rashes, itchiness, intestinal upset and headaches, just to name a few.

Allergic responses are closely linked to inflammation within the body’s systems, such as the immune system or the vascular system. That’s one reason why they can lead to serious health issues down the line. Allergies and sensitivities are at the root of many health problems, including respiratory ailments, skin abnormalities, mood disorders and gastrointestinal symptoms. Allergic reactions are recognized as one of the most important causes of illness and disease in America. All three types of allergies are reactions in your body that shouldn’t be ignored. 

 

The Difference between Allergies and Anaphylactic Shock

Are you somebody who can’t eat certain kinds of foods, like wheat or dairy without getting a scratchy throat? Do you find yourself clutching a Kleenex and blowing your nose each spring?  If a certain substance in your diet or environment consistently triggers an acute, measurable immune response, then you may have a Type I or Immediate-Response allergy. Type I allergic responses are what most people (and doctors) refer to when they talk about allergies. Elevated levels of antibodies called IgE’s in the bloodstream trigger a histamine reaction. The symptoms of histamine reactions include itchy, watery eyes, runny nose, hives, scratchy throat, wheezing  and coughing.

Hay fever and some food sensitivities are Type I allergies. The conventional treatment for these kinds of reactions is anti-allergy medications like Claritin and Allegra.

On the other hand, if you are “deathly allergic” to shellfish, strawberries or beestings, for example, then you have another kind of Type I reaction called anaphylaxis, which is a rapid, systemic reaction to an allergen. Women allergic to medications, foods or bites and stings from certain insects have this kind of allergic response. Anaphylaxis is serious since its symptoms can be life-threatening. An anaphylactic reaction can start with a tingling sensation, itching, or a metallic taste in the mouth. Hives, flushing in the face, wheezing, swelling of the mouth and throat, difficulty breathing, vomiting, diarrhea, cramping, a drop in blood pressure, and loss of consciousness are all characteristic of anaphylaxis or anaphylactic shock. If you begin to experience any of the above symptoms, go immediately to the hospital or call 911. In addition, if you already know that you have a severe allergy to a particular substance, ask you health care provider about an epinephrine kit and how you may obtain one to keep in your purse or backpack in case of emergency.  Anaphylaxis is one case in which conventional medicine is your best option. In fact, it can save your life!

All Type I allergy symptoms usually recede with treatment or by removing the allergen altogether. However, after an anaphylactic episode, other complications can occur. It is possible to have a “bi-phasic reaction” in which symptoms recur two to three hours after the initial attack. If you have to go to the hospital because of anaphylaxis, your ER doctor will probably keep you there for a while for observation after all symptoms have passed. “Bi-phasic” reactions are the reason why.

 

Conventional Allergy Diagnosis

If you walk into your doctor’s office covered from head to toe in hives, he or she will more than likely take one look at you and know that something is seriously wrong (if she doesn’t, then get yourself another doctor!). She will probably conduct a series of tests to determine the origins and severity of the reaction. This will more than likely include a skin-scratch (intradermal) test or a blood test. The scratch test involves injecting small amounts of a common allergen just under the surface of the skin to see if there is any reaction. This test works best for ordinary inhalant allergies, such as dust, but is only about fifty percent accurate. The blood test, on the other hand, is meant to measure the amount of IgE antibodies in the blood. These antibodies can be seen in various heightened levels for most people during a Type I allergic response.

Once an allergy is clearly identified, most doctors tell people to simply avoid the allergen and/or take antihistamine medication for their symptoms. If the allergen can’t be avoided, however, a specialist may start an “immunological protocol.”  During this procedure, progressively higher amounts of the allergen(s) are injected into the bloodstream until the first sign of allergic reaction occurs. The hope with this treatment is that the body will learn to mitigate its response to the allergen through slow and steady exposure.

The trouble with conventional approaches to detecting allergies, especially blood tests, is that they only measure IgE antibody responses. Thus, they can only detect full-blown allergies. Many more subtle allergies and sensitivities are not detected at all. What’s more, these approaches treat every patient as if their biochemistry were all the same. They are potentially very invasive and often offer no real long-term solutions. Most importantly, they skip over the most relevant question of all— what’s really going on inside the body to cause the allergic response in the first place?

Remember the three types of allergic responses mentioned earlier? Conventional modes of detecting and treating allergies are wonderful for severe and life-threatening allergies. They ignore, however, the less serious but more widespread kinds of allergic response that affect the majority of sufferers. You guessed it— chronic and subclinical allergies and sensitivities are often overlooked by conventional medicine and testing.

 

Chronic Allergies and the Pharmaceutical Industry

As diagnosed cases of chronic allergies have increased at an alarming rate, so have the sale of anti-allergy medications. Allegra, Claritin, Flonase and a host of others bring in billions of dollars for the companies who produce them.
For many women, these drugs are prescribed at the first sign of an allergy or sensitivity. Before long, these women become solely dependent on pills for symptom management. They’re rarely if ever told that there are natural alternatives. Furthermore, women with chronic allergies are usually treated as though their allergic reaction is an isolated problem. For example, a woman could be told that she has a “dust” allergy, or perhaps more specifically, a reaction to a substance in dust such as to animal dander. Then she could be advised to simply avoid the allergen and to take medication to control the symptoms. Few doctors will acknowledge the fact that allergens are intricately linked to other imbalances in the body. So for the woman with the “dust” allergy, animal dander sensitivity or other allergy, the reaction to the external substance is indeed just the tip of the iceberg.

 

Hidden Allergies and Environmental Sensitivities

If you begin to take note of how certain foods, substances, and environments affect you on a day-to-day basis, chances are you’ll notice a pattern — and increasingly so as you age. Some women find that keeping a diet journal is a useful first step in “connecting the dots” between their allergens and their symptoms.

 

Conventional medicine says that unless we react to something with “stereotypical allergy symptoms,” we’re not allergic. This line of thinking is misleading and untrue.  Whether the allergic response is an “allergy” or a “sensitivity” is just a matter of degrees. If your body is giving you signals in the form of symptoms, you probably have some kind of sensitivity — no matter how many times your allergy tests come back normal. Remember, your body’s responses are the best rubric in measuring which allergens trigger you.

Type IV, or Delayed Response allergies, are hidden reactions that slowly deplete your immune system over time. They are tricky to detect but just as real as the other three allergy types. These lurking health bombs are usually (but not always) food or additive-related. Partly because of the chronic systemic inflammation that accompanies them, they will slowly erode your well-being and vitality over time.

Type IV allergies are most often associated with the antibodies IgG and IgM. These antibodies work on a subtle level, targeting specific organs or body functions (or several systems at the same time). They can cause a ripple effect of confusing symptoms that may occur as much as seventy-two hours after you’ve been exposed to the allergen. This is one reason why Type IV allergies are more difficult to test for and identify than other types of allergies.

Sometimes Type IV sensitivity symptoms follow a set and predictable course which may be cyclical or cumulative. They usually vary in presentation from person to person. What gives me a skin rash, for example, may give you a headache instead. Here is a list of possible symptoms to watch out for in Type IV sensitivities:

 

The time of onset of Type IV allergies varies with each individual as well. These multiple variables make sufferers tune out to the very symptoms they need to pay attention to, and they will lead most doctors to dismiss patients who come into their offices. Transient symptoms are hard to diagnose when you can’t see the pattern right then and there.

 

If you feel that you may have a Type IV allergy or sensitivity (and many women do), now is the time to tune in to your body and do something about it! Otherwise your body will eventually up the ante until you have some serious issues on your hands. The longer you ignore subtle allergies, the farther you travel down the path of ill health and the harder it is to climb back up. Why not walk down the path towards health, vitality and beauty? The first step on that path is to understand what is going on with your body now. How big an allergen load is your body dealing with? And how much support are you giving it for healing?

 

Your “Body Burden”

Here’s a reality worth considering: every substance on earth that can be eaten, inhaled or touched is a potential allergen. Whether or not it negatively affects you depends on your individual genetic profile and how well your overall system is running.

 

Much is made of the genetic factors in allergies, but often your emotional constitution, lifestyle, diet and physical environment are more important than genetics. This is in part because these factors define the “body burden” your system must process and detoxify through on a daily basis.

 

How allergic you are to a certain substance at any given time is determined by how well your body processes its “body burden.” One reason why women develop adult-onset food allergies is because the older a person gets, the greater this burden is and the less adept the body is at dealing with it. 

 

Even if you eat well and live a healthy lifestyle, you are still constantly exposed to numerous chemicals and potential allergens every day. Currently, there are over 3,000 chemicals that have been added to our food supply and more than 70,000 chemicals used for other purposes in North America alone!

That fresh scent you get from fabric softeners, for example, is all chemically-created, and when you sniff it, those particles go up your nose and into your lungs. There are dozens of heavy metals, lead among them, as well as chlorine in the water we use for cooking, cleaning and drinking in our homes. Phthalates and VOC’s (or volatile organic compounds) are dangerous substances used abundantly in construction and in household products, fragrances and plastics.

 

Over the course of many years, it makes sense that all this chemical exposure would have an effect. And it does. Add to this deadly soup other common factors so prevalent in a modern woman’s life, such as poor diet, emotional stress and hormonal imbalance, and it’s truly a miracle that our bodies can cope at all!  It is no wonder that the majority of the clients who come in to our offices at Vibrant Way are suffering from adrenal exhaustion, a myriad of allergies and severely suppressed immune systems!

 

Some Common Allergens

 

Because everyone is different, the range of actual allergens is huge. More than eleven million Americans have a diagnosed food allergy, but countless more have food sensitivities — often to certain amino acids or additives included in food during processing.

Here is a list of some of the most common allergens, groups together by type:

 

Food and Ingestants: dairy, wheat (and other gluten-producing grains), corn, soy, shellfish, eggs, nightshades, nuts, chocolate, caffeine, yeast, medications, sulfites, salicylates, MSG and other glutamates, xanthan and other gums, artificial food coloring and preservatives (BHA and BHT), sorbic and benzoic acid, and pesticides;

 

Inhalants: Mold, pollen, dust, dust mites, animal hair and dander, synthetic fiber off-gases, down, feathers, artificial chemicals, VOC’s, scented candles and cleaning products, perfume;

 

Contact substances: Latex, plastics, cleaning solvents, insect bites, chemicals in the air and water, cosmetics and sunscreens, shampoos, and other body products.

 

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by such a long list of things that could be detrimental to your health. But take heart— there is a way to lighten the load!  The first thing to do is to look at your diet. Food can be a support or a burden, depending on your particular body profile. Many Vibrant Way clients have seen a marked improvement when they simply pay closer attention to nutrition — even those with Type I allergies. You have the ability to better equip your body to process its toxic load by providing it with the right nutrients. You can also minimize this load by eliminating dietary allergens altogether.

 

But before you get out that paper and pen and start compiling your own list of all the known allergens that may be effecting you, let’s take a look at two food items that cause the majority of issues for almost everyone: sugar and wheat. Then we’ll give you some suggestions on how to start managing your allergenic burden.

The Sugar Connection

 

Although sugar may not register on a standard allergy test, too much sugar (or carbohydrates with a high glycemic value) will produce an inflammatory response identical to an allergy. Why? Because too much sugar in the system places major demands on our digestive system, interfering with absorption of crucial vitamins and minerals. Too much sugar also suppresses the immune system, wreaks havoc on the metabolism, and depletes valuable neurotransmitters. The energy rush and insulin spike that you get from sugar creates an imbalanced body chemistry that leads to weight gain, insulin resistance and loss of appetite control. And there’s more. Confusion, forgetfulness, ADHD, and depression are other symptoms that can occur as much as 48 hours after eating sugar. Muscle cramping, PMS, joint pain, and fatigue are more common symptoms of sugar sensitivity in women. These symptoms can go undiagnosed for years.

 

The majority of the clients we see at Vibrant Way have issues that relate to excessive sugar consumption. Let’s face it— its hard to avoid sugar in our culture and everyone loves the euphoria that accompanies a sugar rush! Those who try to avoid sugar have good intentions but often wind up consuming products that are equally as harmful or potentially worse for the health. These include artificial sweeteners like Splenda and NutriSweet. These products only add to your toxic burden. Removing sugar from your diet — without replacing it with chemical sweeteners — can be a very powerful natural remedy for women with allergies.

 

What is Gluten Sensitivity?

 

“Gluten” is an umbrella term for a family of proteins found within the seeds or grains of wheat, rye, barley, spelt, kamut, and triticale. Gluten sensitivity differs from celiac disease (a genetically-inherited condition in which the lining of the small intestine gets damaged from eating gluten). Together, these two conditions make up a large percentage of people who are not able to adequately digest and process cereal products.

For those with gluten sensitivities, the immune system responds to the substance as if it was an intruder in the body, not a food. If you are gluten sensitive and continue to eat the government’s recommended daily allowance of cereals and grains, this will eventually run down the immune system and disrupt your metabolism, setting the stage for weight gain, systemic inflammation, chronic disease and a snowball effect of other sensitivities.

The irony in all of this is that our notion of “comfort food” usually means a combination of wheat and sugar! What are donuts, sticky buns, and cake largely made of? You got it— white sugar and white flour! In our modern society, we crave the very foods that make us sick.

 

Natural Allergy Relief

 

The easiest and fastest way to find relief from allergies is by changing your diet. Every woman who suffers from allergies can experience complete relief in as little as two weeks by making conscious choices in what they eat. 

So…watch what you eat, eliminate foods that are a burden to the body system and include foods and other nutrients that aid in healing— and soon allergies will be a thing of the past. Sounds pretty straight forward, right? Well, it is. The challenge comes, however, in putting your intentions into action.  Many times the suggestion to try a low-allergen or elimination diet is met with defiance.  “Give up my nightly glass of wine? No more chocolate?  Forget it!”  This is the response we hear all the time at Vibrant Way.

 

As a nutritional consultant, I love these challenging moments. They are the perfect opportunity to discuss the allergy-addiction connection.

 

Why do we crave the very substances that cause us to feel so miserable in the end? The answer is not completely clear, but several theories have been proposed to help explain why this may occur. Some researchers suggest that our bodies can become addicted to chemical messengers such as histamine or cortisol which are secreted by immune cells in response to allergens in the body. Eating foods to which you are allergic may cause a rash or sneezing, for example, but at the same time the body may also be experiencing a soothing response from the presence of the chemical messengers. This response can increase the desire to eat more of that particular food.

 

Succumbing to food cravings to help alleviate symptoms is the beginning of a vicious cycle of short-term relief. You can be sure that those craving will pop up again and again with increasing vigor!  The yo-yo effect of cravings and relief is believed by some allergy specialists to be the reason why those who stop eating the foods to which they are allergic (i.e. those who go on elimination or avoidance diets) first go through several days when they feel worse before they start feeling much better.

 

Try This

So, if you find yourself in the cycle of eating foods that you react to, consider trying this easy elimination diet:

 

At first, many women feel worse when they go off a certain food (especially if they’re allergic or addicted), but if you stick with it for a few days you may be surprised at how good you feel!

If you are unsure what to cut out, try eliminating all members of the nightshade family and eating only non-tropical fruits and non-starchy vegetables for a few days. Then gauge how you feel. Write down your experiences in your journal if you want. Next reintroduce dairy, wheat, sugar and other food types one at a time and track the results. In as little as a week you will begin to notice how certain food effect you.