Allergies
Allergies are a nuisance to people all over the world. For example, about 10% of the world’s population suffers from food allergies alone. In our country, 55% of the population tests positive to one or more allergens. Allergies occur when your body’s immune system overreacts to an allergen which is a particle in the environment that is normally harmless. Some examples of allergens include pollen, dust, mold, medications, certain foods, processed food additives, cleaning products, and animal dander. One documented cause for the increasing rate of allergies is the excess use of antibiotics which negatively affects the immune system by causing it to overreact to usually harmless allergens. Therefore, those affected by allergies have an increased risk for eventually developing asthma and other respiratory issues.
Symptoms & Diagnosis
Allergens can affect many different areas of your body such as the nasal passages, skin, intestinal tract, and lungs. Because of this, there is a very wide array of associated symptoms such as itchiness, postnasal drip, swelling, wheezing, sneezing, shortness of breath, and even vomiting or diarrhea. Furthermore, exposure to allergens can cause symptoms to present within minutes, or they may sometimes take days to manifest.
The most commonly used allergy test by the medical community is the scratch (aka skin prick) test. This test is relatively effective at identifying allergens, but it carries the rare risk of a life-threatening anaphylactic reaction. Safer tests include the radioallergosorbent test and the enzyme linked immunosorbent assay which test blood levels of specific antibodies. Another method of identifying allergens is the elimination-challenge diet. This diet involves the removal of certain foods for two or more weeks. The patient documents their symptoms while slowly continuing to remove specific foods until all allergic symptoms resolve. Then, the foods removed during the diet are slowly and systematically reintroduced until symptoms reappear. This method is effective at identifying allergies caused by food but is often difficult to follow and results in low levels of patient compliance.
Medical Treatment
The medical model’s primary method of treating allergies is by instructing the patient to avoid the identified allergen (which may not even be a possibility) and treating the symptoms with prescription or over-the-counter drugs that suppress the body’s immune response to the allergens. Such drugs include antihistamines, decongestants, and steroids. Treating allergies with medications can initially be effective at decreasing symptoms, however there are often many people who find little to no relief with this approach. Also, like any medication, side effects to these drugs often appear and lead to additional diagnoses of fatigue, insomnia, or digestive issues. Furthermore, treating allergies with medication does not address the main reason why the body is overreacting to a normally harmless particle that is often not similarly experienced by others in the same environment.
The first step Divine Design Natural Health takes to help those with allergies is to support the normal physiology of the immune system through detoxification and removal of the offending substance. If the immune system is functioning properly, it will then be able to respond appropriately to any allergen it encounters. It cannot be overstated that allergies are a relatively new observation in the realm of healthcare, and there are specific reasons for this. Proper patient education, often overlooked in traditional approaches, addresses the cause behind this and empowers allergy sufferers to adopt a new and surprising understanding of this topic.
Many patients respond quickly and favorably to our natural methods of treatment which address the cause of the problem rather than merely suppressing the symptoms. Once the allergens are identified, we help our patients remove those allergens from their environment or diet. Remarkable results are often attained through these methods, and previously perceived lifelong allergies become a thing of the past rather than a future certainty.
