A lot of people don't understand what allergy symptoms are. They come into my office and I ask them, "Do you have allergies?"
They say "no" because they associate allergies with runny eyes, itchy eyes, a swollen throat or hives on their skin. They don't realize that allergies can affect their joints, their memory, their concentration, their moods and their heart. I believe the statistics show that up to 20 per cent of heart irregularities are due to allergies.
People know about the digestive symptoms of allergies - they don't necessarily know about all these others. When I talk about allergies, what I'm really talking about is food sensitivities. A full-blown food allergy is something you have for life. A food sensitivity is developed when certain foods are ingested too often. They create imbalances in the immune system.
Any kind of inflammation - anything ending in "itis" - like sinusitis, colitis, arthritis, bronchitis, dermatitis, gastritis or prostatitis - those can all relate to food sensitivities. Any sort of inflammation can be the result of a food sensitivity - and there's generally more than one cause.
Traditional medicine will look for one cause for the allergy. Naturopathic physicians look at a whole range of different causes. We look at things like toxic overload on the body in relationship to the environment, we look at drugs and infant formulas and we look at the immune system. People with a poor immune system are more likely to develop allergies.
Essentially, the allergenic substance is not the cause, it's the trigger for the allergic reaction. Because the body's immune system is compromised, the body can't jump in and deal with the allergen effectively. As a naturopathic physician, what I want to do is improve the body's immune system so that there are fewer allergic reactions.
I'm going to go into a bit of background here. In 1967 science discovered the IgE imnunoglobulin. This is what causes immediate allergic reactions like those associated with anaphylactic reaction from eating peanuts. These reactions can be severe and even life-threatening.
Traditional medicine looks for IgE imnuglobulins in testing for allergies. As naturopathic physicians, we look for delayed, hypersensitivity reactions. The reaction that we're talking about can take anywhere from a few hours up to four or five days.
Traditional medicine does skin testing and those tests are IgE mediated. But other imnunoglobolins also mediate reactions: IgG is the most common one and is not tested for. Naturopathic physicians use blood tests to determine allergies. What we test for is the IgG's. Testing for IgG's allows us to determine food sensitivities. Seventy-five per cent of the antibodies we produce are IgG's.
Naturopathic physicians also work with the intestinal tract. It contains something we call GALT (Gut Associated Lymph Tissue). GALT makes up 50 per cent of the immune system so it makes sense to work with the digestive system to improve the immune system.
When allergens react with GALT, inflammation results and the intestinal tract becomes more leaky. When the intestinal tract is more leaky, food particles and allergens leak through and circulate in the blood. The trick is to improve the leaky gut syndrome by improving the digestive process.
This is the time of year when I see people coming in with hay fever symptoms. I tell people "If we can improve your intestinal system and your immune system now, then this time next year you'll have far fewer reactions to pollens and the environment" And it works. It works over and over - all the time.
A naturopathic program treats the acute allergy with natural antihistamines like vitamin C and Quercitin and also puts them on a program that strengthens the immune system and gets to the root of the problem.
The good news is that the pain and discomfort of allergies can be treated. There is hope and there is help.
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