Allergy sufferers may suffer from allergies in two ways: One person can experience allergies solely during the spring season and another can suffer from allergies all year round. Pets, carpet, fungus or dust are common causes of allergies and to prevent this, the all-year round allergy sufferer needs to frequently vacuum his/her furniture and carpets to remove the allergens.

This article will focus on allergy that occurs during spring season. Typical symptoms for both spring time and perennial allergy include itchy eyes, sore throat, stuffy nose, nasal mucus, sneezing and coughing. The person suffering from a spring time allergy has usually allergy that is acute in nature while perennial allergy is essentially chronic. Regardless, of what kind of allergy one has, if it is not addressed, more severe conditions may arise that may include pleurisy, pulmonary tuberculosis, pulmonary emphysema, emphysema, bronchial trouble, rhinitis and even lung cancer.

Spring-time allergy Causes

Spring pollens are the most common causes of spring time allergy affecting tens of millions of people in the United States. If we know the causes of our allergy, it’s very easy to prevent its development. Because of their stationary existence, a lot of trees and plants use animals and wind as vectors to spread their pollen to multiply.

Tips for Preventing Allergies When You’re at Home

Consuming honey everyday can help your develop immunity to pollen-generated allergy. It is believed that since bees produce honey taken from all flowers, the pollens that they pick up from these flowers are mixed in the honey they make. So when you eat honey, your body will be used to these pollens that when you are exposed to them during spring time, it will identify the pollens and so will not react to them. Buy your honey at your nearby health food store. It’s good to read the labels to know where the honey is produced and what farm it came from. When you buy from a local health food store, the farm or place where the honey was made came from bees dwelling within a 50-mile radius where you live. This probably means that the pollens in the honey abound within your area.

People who have itchy eyes should only use cold water. They should not rub or touch their eyes as this only worsens the irritation. If you have extremely itchy eyes, you can drink a Chinese herbal tea known as jue ming his or stick your head into a refrigerator to lessen the itching.

You usually sneeze and blow your nose when you have an allergic reaction. When sneezing, don’t blow your nose too hard. Use soft tissue to wipe your nose. Nose bleeding may occur from damage to the mucosal membrane if you blow too hard.

If you have a sore throat, eating ice cream may help relieve the pain and throat discomfort. Ice cream can decrease the rising heat in the stomach. Rising heat in the abdomen is one of traditional Chinese medicine’s diagnoses for sore throat.

Shut the car windows when you are driving to avoid direct wind. As much as possible, avoid going out at 5 a.m. to 10 a.m. TCM calls this time period liver hour.

It may be good to avail of OTC (over-the-counter) drugs for a short period of time if you suffer from all year round allergies. Long term use of these drugs, however, can damage the stomach.

Real solution for allergies

Practitioners of TCM argue that allergies occur as a result of the connection of the kidney, spleen and lung. Affected spleen may cause sniveling while sneezing can be the result of a malfunctioning lung.

According to TCM and acupuncture theory, spring time allergy is usually related with liver. The wind pathogen usually thrives during the spring equinox to summer solstice. There are people who say that prior to July 4, their allergies tend to vanish. When liver is overworked, it over regulates the spleen. Liver also opposes towards lung. When the allergy symptoms are externally manifested, (which means symptoms seen on the mouth, nose, skin, etc.), one should prevent it from affecting the internal organs. This is very important since when the external affects the internal, the allergy may take a longer time to resolve.

We can see now that spring allergy is caused by nature. Treatment for it, therefore, should be also natural. To rid of these symptoms, a natural way of healing is the best way approach to this problem. In acupuncture treatment of spring allergy, the first aim of the acupuncturist is to treat the related symptoms. One to a couple of treatments usually is enough to treat allergies. A lot of allergy sufferers who’ve had acupuncture got relief from the sore throat and dry nose after only a few minutes of acupuncture. Depending on your symptoms, one or a multiple session of acupuncture is needed. A few sessions may be required depending on personal conditions. The acupuncturist may add Chinese herbs to the treatment, if needed.

Another thing to remember is that both spring allergy and perennial allergy are due to the sufferer’s weak immune system. Strengthening the immune system is vital to help make the body more resilient to an allergic reaction. TCM practitioners believe that the body is made up of essence, body fluids, blood and qi. When one or more of these factors is deficient or imbalanced, Chinese herbs and acupuncture can help address the deficiency and imbalance. If you have a strong immune system, you are going to be immune to seasonal and perennial allergy.

Zuobiao (Roy) Yuan is a licensed acupuncturist and doctor of chinese medicine in Edina, MN.