More and more people, adults and children, are experiencing allergies that are disrupting our days. From food, dust, pets, and environmental factors, the list of things people are experiencing allergies is ever growing!
What is causing all of these allergies though? Where are they coming from? More importantly perhaps is can we improve the amount of things we are allergic to? Not only are these questions important for our own health but for understanding our children's health now and in their future.
What are Allergies?
At the core, an allergy is an immune system response to a substance that is typically considered harmless and safe for most people. These substances are known as allergens and can include, food, pollen, mold, dust, pet dander, insect stings and bites, and medications among many other things. When exposure to the substance occurs, the immune system mistakenly identifies it as a threat and reacts to it. The reaction(s) are the symptoms we experience as an allergic reaction. This can vary from sneezing, itching, rashes, to more severe breathing issues, anaphylaxis shock and more.
Most of the time allergic reactions are minor but they deter us from eating or being around these substances depending on severity. They can make life complicated and tricky where it becomes necessary to consider ingredients, look for menu options at restaurants and restrict ourselves from experiences. Allergies can even influence our mental and emotional health as well.
There are a couple interesting facts about allergies to be aware of though. First, is that we can develop allergies at any point in our life and they can be lifelong or temporary. They can be inherited from our family tree, appear in childhood, or later in life. They can come and go throughout our life as well.
The second fact is that allergies are a modern day phenomenon. This doesn't mean that allergies didn't exist before but there are so many more allergies today, they are more complex, and they are more prevalent than generations ago. I'm going to explain why momentarily.
A Brief History of Allergies
The first prominent allergy recognized occurred in the early 1990s. It was a food allergy that was rising in concern and occurrence among children. Peanuts became an overnight food evil villain. Public awareness and media stories started instilling fear that peanut allergies could strike at any time with allergic reactions and fatalities.
As a result of emerging research on this new allergy at the time, pediatricians even started advising parents delay the introduction to allergenic foods like peanuts to infants. Thankfully, further research by the Learning Early About Peanut (LEAP) study in 2015 showed early introduction to peanuts to high risk infants could actually reduce the risk of developing a peanut allergy.
Now here's where it gets truly interesting, peanut allergies were primarily found in the Western countries of the United States and borderline Canadian communities. This was not worldwide epidemic level and was rather limited to the United States.
People had eaten peanuts for ages. This was not a new food in human diets. Nor was it new in products we use daily. So what happened to the United States peanuts?
If you trace back the food chain of peanuts you see a change in peanut production and manufacturing occurred at the same time as the outbreak of this new allergy problem. This was also the peak time for producing many new methods for manufacturing foods and an increase in the number of available processed foods into the American diet as well, including artificial sweeteners, diet sodas, and increased used of food dyes, artificial ingredients and flavors.
Directly related to the peanut cycle though is that at this time farmers growing peanuts started using fertilizers and soil additives promoted by companies like Monsanto to increase yield, reduce risk of diseases and create a "better peanut." The reverse has happened though, including soil deterioration which led to the need to increase use of products to boost soil nutrients. Again, that has failed to produce the desired result too. Instead these man made interventions have led to an increase of microbes and infectious causing problems in soil that peanuts were growing in that increased the risk of allergic disease. Peanuts were not the only victim as these same products were now being sprayed on corn, wheat, and other crops.
Now I will mention here again, that yes peanut allergies existed before all of this occurred but they were rare and usually a genetic factor within a family lineage. If a family member had a history of allergies than there was an increased risk of developing allergies from them. Again, though these were rare and no where near the level of concern we were now facing as a society.
What is Causing the Rise in Allergies?
Peanuts were only the beginning. Soon other allergies starting emerging including gluten, corn, and dairy related. We also started to see an increase in the number of allergic reactions to environmental factors like dust, mold, pet dander and nature.
Despite policy changes creating peanut free zones, labeling on foods to clearly identify allergens and potential of cross contamination risks, people continued to experience allergic reactions. There was a high demand for allergy shots and treatments for relief with cautionary advise to avoid exposure to a once well used food in our diets.
Today, almost 40 years later, we continue to see peanut allergies alongside a growing number of other food and environmental allergies persist. In many cases, finding someone who doesn't have an allergy to something is the rarity. The situation with allergies is that once you have one that is dominate it is not unusual to develop others. This happens because of the overactivity of the immune system to allergens overall. It is already "on alert" to one so it becomes easier to become sensitive to others.
Each one of the Big 8 Food Allergy Categories has been touched by man made chemicals resulting in chemical changes in the food product.
When this happens we start to also see a mix of allergy related activity occurring such as skin sensitivities to detergents, respiratory sensitivities to aromas, and increased risk of food allergies. People who have not experienced allergies before will now find they are more sensitive to things. It is common to overlook this as just getting older but more often than not it is the immune system response to an initial allergy that triggers these heightened allergens.
The second reason there is such a rise in allergies among people is the increased use of chemicals in our every day lives. I know, I know, here's the crunchy part of the message but hear me out. We have hundreds of new chemicals, including plastics that didn't exist previously in our food, home, and environment. The human body was not designed to process chemicals as anything other than a toxin because it is a threat to the delicate balance of our health. Since we are not surrounded by chemicals in the form of preservatives, artificial food products and ingredients, personal care products, soaps and cleaners, aromas, and more the body becomes highly toxic in nature. When toxins are elevated in the body it influences our organ systems and their ability to filter and remove these chemicals.
When the body cannot identify something it tries to eliminate it as well as keep a copy of it so that in the future if it encounters it again it knows it as a toxin. Those copies get stored in the body's adipose cells, yes fat cells. A couple problems occur at this point. One let's say you're overweight and you lose a few pounds. In the process of losing weight those toxins are released from the fat cells where they reintroduce the risk of that toxin. Secondly, being stored in the body creates a risk for disease and illness as the body filters through the normal detoxification process. Over time if we keep adding in those chemicals through our daily lives and diet then the body continues to build them up in the cells to the point they can no longer function and we develop disease.
Which by the way, disease is an acronym in holistic health for dis-ease. This means the body is out of balance and in unease because something foreign that doesn't belong in there is dominating.
The bottom line is we are now dealing with allergies in rampant forms and common life as well as increased risk to our very health and well-being. It never is just a simple allergy you may say and is rather a strong signal that something is not working well in our health that we need to address. Most of us don't however identify and address these problems so we end up taking pills, medications and allergy shots to mitigate the symptoms we experience.
Allergies are a Sign of Digestive Problems
Food allergens are most commonly caused from processed and ultra processed ingredients as well as how food is made. These chemicals change how the body processes foods resulting an irritation we know as an allergy. The peanut allergy is a great example. Back in the 1980s there was an increase in chemicals used to treat soil where peanuts were grown. This change resulted in an increase crop yield which mean quicker ways to provide foods made from peanuts to the grocery shelf. As part of that process, manufacturing of peanut related foods also changed to include preservatives so these food products had a longer shelf life. The end result? A sudden increase in peanut allergies. This same trend can be seen with wheat, corn, rye, barley, and many other foundational foods.
As we develop more sensitivities to certain foods, we also become more susceptible to environmental allergens. This is because our body has lost some of the ability to navigate these threats due to the increased allergens affecting the digestive system. Again, remember upfront where we talked about the digestive system and microbiome being very influential in our overall health. If they cannot digest and filter what we are exposed to and taking within our body, then our body cannot respond to other threats it encounters on the outside. Essentially, we have faulty systems that are no longer communicating well and able to overcome these things that are now causing us to sneeze, itch, experience watery eyes, and not feel well.
If you need more of an example of just how much chemicals are in our food, take a stroll down any aisle in your grocery store and read labels. In many cases we cannot get past the first 5 of any product without finding something we have no idea what it is. Bio-engineered food has become the stable on the grocery store shelves and it is today's trendy term for chemical.
Now, in all transparency I will repeat this information here. There CAN BE some people who will be allergic to something natural. It happens but it is not the norm. The human body was made to use nature in its daily life and therefore we are completely compatible with the products produced directly from Earth as they were originally designed. When there is an allergy to something on this level it is usually the result of something on a cellular level in the body that is rare and different.
Allergies and Your Emotions
Besides environmental and food factors that can create allergic responses, there is another side of allergies often now discussed. Your emotions.
Yes, your emotions can transpire into allergies of the physical form! Your emotions can actually transpire into a lot of things physically including illnesses and diseases but that is a story for another post. For now though let's talk about the allergy - emotion relationship.
Think about it, allergies are irritants. They trigger the immune system into activating because the body is irritated (runny nose, runny eyes, itchy skin, etc.). Emotionally, that represents our feelings of being irritated and annoyed. Aggravated even by other people who have irritated us. See the similarity?
Ok so take that similarity and play it out. When we have emotional feelings of irritation, frustration, aggravation and we never do anything about that, it can act as an allergy in the body. We develop a headache, upset stomach, don't feel well when we have to deal with a certain person or circumstance.
The other way emotions play out into physical allergies is when we blame people and events for our own negative reactions. We obsess with someone who has hurt us and struggle with forgiveness. We are allowing ourselves to be controlled by and manipulated by others and circumstances. That creates a struggle with boundaries. We become highly sensitive to other people's behaviors and beliefs about us. Feel frustrated in our discomfort around them.
This all leads to an irritation that again can transpire into a physical allergic response to environmental or food that is physiologically tied to that person or circumstance. We are now allowing the full expression of who we are to come forward and set the appropriate boundaries.
Does this always happen? Do we always see an emotional and physical allergic response? Surprisingly yes it is common. This is where we have a significant gap in Western medicine that treats only parts of the human body. There is very little credence given to the human health experience as a whole because each segment of our being is separated out by specialties defined by the medical structure. However, when you put the body back together as one entity you see that physical health is directly tied to emotional, mental, and spiritual health as well. These health elements all work together to tell the story of our overall health and well-being certainly. They also though give us clues for what is manifesting in the body physically. Long term ignored, unsupported, symptoms can be traced to emotional, mental and spiritual needs. A simple example for this is when there is depression or anxiety. That greatly influences how the physical body feels. We develop physical pain, stiff joints, low energy, and digestive discomforts.
We are taught to ignore and shove down so many feelings in our life from a young age that we were not designed to do as humans. As a result we lack the ability to process what we feel and can lack the skills we need to resolve these types of problems. Yet our body was designed to do those things and when it cannot it treats it like a toxin. It is stored in the cellular memories and released when there is trauma, significant changes, or situations where the body draws up that memory and tries to finally resolve it. We experience that as physical pain, disease, illness, and even allergies.
Allergies and Finding Natural Relief
Now that you have an overview of the allergy situation, how do we support it? Can we ever get rid of our allergies or is all hope lost?
The good news is there is hope and relief naturally available. We can even see the body reawaken to the point it is possible allergies are minimized. We can support the body preventatively as well as reactively during allergic needs as well as work to mitigate the root cause of the allergy itself. It may not mean we can completely eliminate it but I prefer to say nature is pretty remarkable in the things it can do so I wouldn't rule that out.
The process of using nature to support allergies is not unlike other natural means of problem solving. We have to identify the root cause. We then have to cross reference all occurrences that are feeding off that root cause. For example, if we find you have a skin sensitivity to your detergent, it is a bigger problem than just swapping detergents. We need to identify other ways those similar ingredients may be influencing your allergies.
We then equip the body with what it needs to manage the allergy better. This comes in the form of elimination of chemicals and aligning support from natural medicine. We remove the irritant, build healthy relationships with it and perhaps eventually we can reintroduce it in some cases. This is important especially if you have developed a love of a certain food you now find yourself allergic. It may not be possible but all efforts are made and overtime we work with the body to see where we can get it.
The natural medicine part is from nature itself. This is in the form of herbs, homeopathy, supplementation, and other available elements to help proactively and reactively support the body. We are equipping the body with what it would naturally have available to respond to allergy threats and helping it stimulate those actions on its own. This too can take some time but we work with your specific allergy needs to align the right solution to you. In this respect, natural medicine is completely different from Western medicine as we are not using the same solution for everyone. There is not a one sized fits all solution for why you developed this allergy or what your body needs to navigate and manage it.
That being said though there are some common things we use that are known for their help in allergy support. Stinging Nettle, Rosemary, garlic, homeopathy, and others have a long standing history of allergy support. They can help but their effectiveness will be based on what your body specifically needs. I believe the best place to start with allergies is in discussion with a practitioner. The path to the source of your allergies and way to support them can be figured out together.
The other important factor here is to stop disregarding allergies as nuisances and limitations. It is a sign our body is trying to protect us and we have the opportunity to talk to the body and provide the necessary support for healing. Whether it is a physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual need we can work to align harmony across these pillars of health to promote well-being.
To work with me, book at www.dragonspitapothecary.com/care
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