I (Dear Mom) grew up without any form of allergy. Then, one fine evening, one of my eyes started acting out. I couldn’t fathom why on earth, all of a sudden, one eye would become so rebellious and emotional. Well, I knew it had to do something with the itchiness that accompanied the tears, but I had no clue what exactly caused the sudden itchiness. It progressively got worse from that point. A day or two later I had to visit the doctor. His diagnosis was — I developed an allergy. Obviously, he was mistaken, right? I never had an allergy. How can I have allergy suddenly? Allergy is not something we can develop overnight, can we? Therefore, I asked all sorts of questions to make sure that I was not misdiagnosed. I mean, I thought allergy is something we are born with. I refused to believe that one can develop allergy well into their adulthood. Eeh, whoever said “ignorance is bliss” must have developed an allergy later in her life.

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Since that diagnosis, my allergy diligently announces its presence every year, at least once during the start of summer. And since I am a slow learner, with a memory as active as Dory, every time I experience the allergic reaction to beautiful flowers, my initial response is usually, “aah, this old stuffy nose, I must be catching a cold, but, I am not a baby, if I ignore it, it will go away”.

Lo and behold, to my utter surprise, this tactic never works! Usually, I end up at the doctor’s office needing a prescription for an antibiotic or a steroid shot for the infection we (I and the allergy) develop.

Allergy and I make a good team, every summer we turn my face itchy, with a stuffed nose, and acute ear infection. If the season is favorable, we do it in the fall too.

Lately, I am getting smart! I cave in early and take over the counter (OTC) allergy medication. The once-a-day nasal sprays work like a charm, given that I use it before things get out of hand, and I mean way-way out of hand.

Other OTC allergy medications also work well if I start early. Did I say I was getting smart? Hmm…Last summer I was feeling extra lethargic during the day after the grand opening of the allergy season.

Weeks later I figured out that I was taking a drowsy version of the allergy medications. The sleepy feeling I was having had nothing to do with my sudden lack of energy or my age-old procrastination habit, it was because I was taking medications that make people sleepy. Being smart is not that easy 🙁

Along with ditching the ‘ignore allergy and it will go away’ strategy, I started reading about seasonal allergies and allergy in general.

Seasonal allergy is caused by the increase of pollen in the air. Our body treats the pollen as dangerous foreign entities.

The allergy symptoms are the results of our body’s heightened response to tackle these supposedly ‘dangerous’ pollens.

One line of thinking is that if we can slowly train our body to accept these pollens as a familiar entity, maybe the body won’t react so much during the increased pollen season. So, the question is, how can I trick my body into thinking that pollens are not dangerous at all?

Local honey
One popular approach is taking local honey. The idea is, local honey should contain local pollen. If we take local honey then we are feeding our body with local pollen. The pollen is no longer a foreign entity in the body. The honey will not contain an alarming level of pollen and the body will not react with massive symptoms. So, I tried local honey. My experience is that local honey does work and it works best if I regularly take the honey, and take it well before the start of allergy season. If only I could remember to build up the pollen resistance so long before the allergy season.

Apples

I also ate a lot of apples last summer. I read somewhere — apples are good for treating allergy. Maybe it is true, maybe it isn’t. I have a mixed result.

Vitamin C
Another thing that I tried successfully was taking vitamin C. This vitamin drastically reduces histamine levels in our body. Apparently, histamine is the chemical that causes most of the allergy symptoms. So, technically, if we can cut down the level of histamine, we should have a less allergic reaction.

Homeopathic remedy
I also started testing a homeopathic remedy. I mean, I had to try everything out there. Who knows what I don’t know and what might be the magical solution to this irritatingly simple problem? So far, I can say that Sabadil has given an exceptional result if I take it during the early stage of my allergy symptoms.

As you can see, I tried a bunch of things over the years. I only wrote about the things that worked for me. I forgot the other ones. To my defense, I often forget I have an allergy until the symptoms become severe and I go ‘Eureka, I have allergy’. Maybe I need to work on my memory.

Do you have seasonal allergies? Any suggestion to treat seasonal allergies? We would love to hear your thoughts. Have a great, allergy-free, week.

From a Family Blog: Settle in El Paso