Its springtime and the pollinators are in abundance with the blooming of trees and flowers of all kinds!
How are your seasonal allergies?
Image credit: Jenna Lee - https://jennalee.co
I remember it well: spring would be sprung and my allergies would kick in. Watery, itchy eyes feeling like they wanted to roll back in to my head, sneezing (or just feeling like you were about to for hours at a time), stuffy, runny nose.
Even in those days, before I had discovered Chinese medicine I didn’t particularly like taking Western medicine. I would avoid taking anything and my allergies would turn into something worse, usually bronchitis, sometimes pneumonia. Eventually my doctor talked me into taking allergy medications which made me feel like a zombie, but at least I didn’t have bronchitis!
Now things are different. I no longer take any medications for allergies, I rarely have any allergy symptoms at all, and if I do it is generally a pretty quick and easy fix. I have also had several patients report that after treatment, they also have had their allergies symptoms greatly reduced and the more we treat it, the better it gets!
Chinese medicine is not a cure-all but it can has the potential make a lot of symptoms significantly better. Most of my personal success is likely due to CM combined with lifestyle changes. It’s a process and it’s important to use all of the tools you have available to you.
Here are a few things you can do to help your body stop overreacting to tiny pollen particle invaders.
Diet
Your diet is something you can always change to better serve you. In this case it depends on what you are battling.
Congestion- cut back on the dairy products and sugars. Don’t forget that carbs (especially refined ones) count as sugars so cut them down as much as possible. Better yet, replace them with some lightly sautéed vegetables. Oil is preferred to butter and try to keep it light during times when your allergies are acting up.
Itchy eyes and sneezing- avoid spicy foods, increase blood building foods like beets, cherries, leafy greens (mmm, Kale!), and bone broths.
Cold Foods- Avoid cold, uncooked foods like too much salad. Often salads are recommended as a healthier option but this isn’t always the case. Salads add coldness to the digestive tract and that can slow down digestion and metabolism of foods. This coldness and slowing can also produce dampness which will equal more mucus and congestion. If you just love salads and are not giving them up: drink warm tea just before, during or after your meal. If having a salad as a side that’s probably fine as long as you are eating plenty of warm foods with it. Also: avoid the ranch and choose the vinaigrette preferably with real olive oil.
Inflammatory foods- Its best to avoid chicken and beef this time of year as well as cutting as much sugar as you can. Other foods to avoid: gluten, msg, and alcohol.
Increase anti-inflammatory foods like turmeric, ginger, dark chocolate, fresh fruits and vegetables, more leafy greens, nuts, and fatty fish like salmon, mackerel, and tuna.
Craving sugar and carbs? Me too. I’m by no means perfect but this time of year, fruit is abundant so make your sugar fix do double duty and fill yourself full of vitamins and antioxidants! You won’t get much from a watermelon but things like cherries, strawberries, and oranges will give you lots of good vitamins plus they pair perfectly with some dark chocolate.
Hydrate
Staying hydrated helps your body flush out unwanted toxins and helps everything run more smoothly. Quality matters, so avoid plastic bottles and invest in that filter for home.
Acupuncture
This amazing medicine can help regulate and reorient your body’s systems to reduce over-reactions to outside invaders. Other symptoms such as congestion, itchy eyes, and sneezing can also be alleviated by acupuncture.
Chinese herbs
We are talking 5,000+ years of folk medicine that comes from careful observation and assessing the body as a whole organism. A whole host of common ailments can be helped by Chinese herbal medicine and I would love to talk more I depth about this with you.
As always, thank you for stopping by and reading my blog. I hope this has been beneficial for you.
Be Well,
Amy ☮️☯️💟