Archive for 'Allergies'
HOW TO PREVENT CHMICAL SENSITIVITY
Posted on April 20, 2009, under Allergies.
Reducing chemical exposure
The following measures will reduce the level of chemical exposure experienced. The list begins with the simplest measures, and works through to more difficult ones. Try the first three measures for a couple of weeks, and see what effect this has. If there is some improvement, add the next two measures and wait another two weeks, and so on. If there is none, it may be that workplace chemicals, or generalized exposures (eg air pollution) are the problem. Consider whether this is likely, and if it is, try out the appropriate avoidance measures.
Cigarette smoke
If you smoke, even only occasionally, you should stop. If other people in your household smoke, try to persuade them to give up, or to smoke in the garden shed for a while. Wash curtains and other furnishings that harbour smoke residues, and air all rooms thoroughly. If cigarette smoke is unavoidable, you could consider hiring an air filter for a while. Cigarette smoke at work is more of a problem, but if your colleagues smoke you might try asking your employer to provide you with a smoke-free environment.
Do not use perfume, after-shave or any strongly scented toiletries for a while. If you have to use deodorant, use the unscented, roll-on variety and try not to breathe the fumes. Do not use aerosols or talcum powder.
Water pollutants
You can either buy bottled mineral water, or use a filter to improve the quality of tap-water. Filters do not remove all contaminants however. Rather than investing in a filter, it may be better to use bottled water if you are just avoiding tap-water for a few weeks.
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ALLERGIC REACTIONS: TINNITUS
Posted on March 25, 2009, under Allergies.
Do your ears ring? Or hiss? Or roar like the ocean? Or crackle like Rice Krispies?
These are the sounds of the ear problem, tinnitus. And they’re not just background noise. You can’t hear every word that’s spoken or enjoy radio or TV programmes without straining. In some ways, tinnitus is even worse than deafness – at least the deaf can concentrate on what they’re reading and sleep without being woken up by the noises in their own head.
People with tinnitus complain of noise in one or both ears, or a different sound in each ear. In either case, the noise can become louder or softer at different times of the day. And the louder the tinnitus, the more tense and irritable you become.
Infection or injury are common causes of the problem. But it can also be a symptom of Meniere’s syndrome, a hearing disorder caused by fluid retention in the ear, which in turn can be caused by allergies. And tinnitus can be a direct result of allergy-triggered inflammation of tiny blood vessels inside the ear.
As with other ear problems, allergy should be considered as a possible cause of tinnitus if:
- you have allergies of the nose, sinuses or respiratory tract (hay fever, asthma, sinusitis,
nasal polyps);
– your symptoms are linked to specific foods or inhalants; or
– skin or blood tests indicate you have allergies.
Sometimes the signs of ear allergy are very subtle. One man suffered ringing in the ears and increasing deafness for eight years. The only clues to allergy were post-nasal drip and a strong dislike for milk. His doctor put him on a standard elimination diet, omitting the most common food allergens such as milk, wheat, eggs and fruit. Within two weeks, the ringing and deafness decreased; in one month noise disappeared completely and the man could hear well once again. Relief continued for two months on the diet. Individual foods were then gradually added to his diet to test for allergic symptoms. Tinnitus and loss of hearing returned only when the man drank milk or ate wheat or eggs. By avoiding those foods, his tinnitus disappeared permanently.
As a preventive measure, anyone who works in a noisy area should wear ear plugs or ear protectors to avoid ear damage, which can also cause tinnitus. Tinnitus can also be aggravated by too much salt in the diet, overuse of aspirin, drinking alcohol or smoking cigarettes.
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ALLERGIC REACTIONS: HYPERACTIVE ADULTS
Posted on March 25, 2009, under Allergies.
Parents may find themselves a lot calmer after their child’s been on a good diet for a few weeks. First of all, they have a less disruptive child to contend with. Second, they may have been a little hyperactive themselves and not realized it.
While most hyperactive behavior appears in children, adults aren’t immune. After all, we eat a lot of the same foods. (In fact, one of the very first people whom Dr Feingold noticed reacting to food additives was a twenty-six-year-old woman.) The only difference between us adults and our children may be that we’ve learned to modulate our behavior.
How can you tell if you’ve been a little hyperactive? Well, you probably couldn’t concentrate on your work for more than five or ten minutes at a time. You didn’t sleep well. You were easily irritated and always a little excited. In fact, a lot of the impatient, aggressive ‘Type A’ behavior exhibited in people at high risk for heart disease and other stress-related disorders may be a reaction to foods to which they are allergic. So if you tend to be fidgety and impulsive, you should take a serious look at what you’ve been eating, too.
That’s especially important for mothers of hyperactive children who are expecting another child. Dr Feingold told us that there’s a good chance that exposure to hyperactivity-triggering foods during pregnancy plays a big role in determining whether or not the child will be hyperactive. Breastfeeding is the best insurance you can take against food allergies of any kind.
Child or adult, however, a successful response to a change in diet reinforces good behavior: once behavior improves, and when an individual feels better about himself or herself, self-esteem goes up and hyperactive behavior fades away into a bad memory. It’s a real joy to see the face of a disruptive, moody child transformed into one that says, ‘Color me happy’.
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ALLERGIC REACTIONS: CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR
Posted on March 25, 2009, under Allergies.
Crime and violence are increasing, especially among young people. Yet despite the best intentions of rehabilitation workers, counseling and attempts at reform are often futile. Some people seem destined to stay in trouble with the law all their lives.
A few doctors and scientists now take the view that much crime, particularly violent crime, is caused by some biological malfunction of the criminal’s brain – sometimes triggered by food allergies and chemical exposure. Not that sociological factors do not play a role. But biological factors such as allergy have been ignored too long, say these researchers.
In a speech to the California Commission on the Prevention of Crime and Violence, Bernard Rimland said that because traditional approaches to rehabilitation of criminals haven’t been very successful, it’s time to examine the influence and correction of other factors, specifically:
- food allergies,
- food additives,
- excess sugar intake,
- pesticides and herbicides inadvertently added to food and water,
- fumes from industrial and other environmental sources and
Interestingly enough, many of those same factors have been found to be responsible for allergy-induced hyperactivity, learning problems and aggression, which are often directly related to criminal behavior.
Dr Rimland described the brain as a ‘soggy computer’ – a compact information and control centre that’s 85 per cent water by weight. Doctors already know that if an individual takes in too much of a toxic metal like lead, or too little of an essential nutrient like thiamine, something will go wrong. By the same token, if a person eats a food or breathes a substance which is basically harmless but to which he or she happens to be allergic – wheat, pollen, aspirin or whatever – the brain will act up. The result can be distortions of judgment and control that can easily lead to antisocial and criminal behavior.
‘It’s well known that allergies may cause such symptoms as hay fever, asthma and hives,’ says Dr Rimland. ‘Since it is so widely recognized that the nasal membranes, the lungs and the skin can be affected by a food or other substances to which some individuals are intolerant, [it's not surprising that] the brain, the most intricate and biochemically complicated organ in the body, could also be affected by allergies.
‘Individuals who have cerebral [brain] allergies to wheat, beef, milk, corn and other common foods are likely to experience chronic problems such as headaches, feelings of unreality and lack of control over their behavior, sometimes resulting in violence or, surprisingly, specific compulsions such as to steal or commit arson,’ says Dr Rimland. ‘Individuals who are allergic to or who cannot tolerate substances [which they eat or encounter less frequently] such as oysters, walnuts or formaldehyde, may experience unexpected and uncontrolled episodes of aberrant behavior with intervening periods of trouble-free behavior.
‘The “brain allergy” concept has important implications for correcting criminal behavior through diet,’ says Dr Rimland.
As it happens, many of the dietary changes designed to improve criminal behavior have involved the elimination of non-nutritive items such as sugar and food additives. Alexander Schauss, a noted criminologist, reports the following sequence of events at a military prison in Seattle. On 1 November 1978, white flour was replaced with whole wheat. On 3 February 1979, sugar was eliminated – including all pastries, cakes, ice cream and soft drinks. Records subsequently showed that after the menu changes, discipline problems among the inmates were down 12 per cent from the same period a year before (Diet, Crime and Delinquency, Parker House).
But removing any incriminated allergens can correct criminal behavior. Dr Doris J. Rapp, an allergist in Buffalo, New York, tells of one uncooperative young man who had a history of stealing. During the nine months that Dr Rapp treated his allergies, the stealing stopped. When therapy was discontinued (at his mother’s request), stealing resumed. Three other patients in Dr Rapp’s care had a recurrence of stealing when allergy treatment was discontinued {Journal of Learning Disabilities).
‘One wonders how many children and adults have been drugged and placed in institutions because of violent behavior related to adverse food reactions,’ says Schauss.
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UNDERSTANDING ALLERGY: ALLERGIC REACTIONS FROM A TO V
Posted on March 25, 2009, under Allergies.
Allergy can disguise itself in any of dozens of different ways. Yet once you know how to recognize allergy – and what to do about it – you stand an excellent chance of feeling well again.
That’s what this section is for – to help you identify all the masks of allergy. The common problems of sneezing, wheezing, itching and digestive upsets are discussed here in full, of course. But while allergies most often affect the nose, lungs, skin and stomach, doctors are learning that there’s no reason to assume that allergies ignore the rest of the body. Thanks to the insight of several pioneering doctors mentioned in the following pages, people are learning that the same allergy that’s causing their asthma, hay fever, eczema or hives may be spilling over to other parts of their body, producing seemingly unrelated discomforts. The truth is that many stubborn or unexplained health problems, from high blood pressure to overweight, may be caused or aggravated by allergy.
For instance, say you have eczema but you also get nagging headaches frequently. Good detective work of the type described in the earlier chapters of this book reveals that both milk and enzyme-containing laundry detergents contribute to your skin trouble. You eliminate them and within a few weeks your eczema clears up considerably – but not completely. Reading the entry on headaches (a problem not usually thought of as a symptom of allergy), it occurs to you that you may also be allergic to citrus fruit. So you avoid oranges, lemon and all other forms of citrus. Both the eczema and headaches disappear completely.
You may not have eczema or headaches, of course. That’s just an example of how the information in this section can be used to help anyone with sensitivities to food, inhalants or other allergens find more complete and lasting relief from all their symptoms. And in a way, the people who benefit most from allergy detective work are those with less clear-cut forms of allergy – fatigue, muscle aches, ringing in the ears and the like. They’ve probably consulted half a dozen or more doctors but have found no explanation or effective treatment. And when people have a health problem that defies diagnosis, they react in one of two ways. Some imagine the worst and convince themselves that they have cancer or some other terrifying disease. Others worry that they’re just imagining their aches and pains and that they’ve turned into hypochondriacs. And still other people try to tough it out the best they can. But all tend to grow more depressed and frustrated by the day, their lives ruled by nagging, mysterious complaints. And that’s too bad. Because so many people might find complete relief from chronic health problems by using a guide like this to figure out how allergies are affecting their condition.
Like most people, you’re probably so accustomed to thinking of allergies in terms of sneezing, wheezing and itching that you’ll be surprised to learn that allergies can show up as so many different ailments. Few other allergy books even mention those health problems or discuss them in the depth that we present here. We hope you and your family will find this section as useful and interesting as the rest of the book. Since avoidance is usually the cure, the more you learn about your individual -and very unique – form of allergy, the better your chances for a complete recovery. As one doctor told us, ‘People become very smart when they’re ill.’
Of course, allergy isn’t the only possible cause of many of these conditions. Many can be caused or aggravated by infection or other disease. It’s wise to get a medical checkup in order to rule out other causes, especially in infants and children or anyone who is chronically ill.
Yet even if you find that some of your health problems are not allergies, you’ll soon see that treating them will build up your defenses and make treatment of allergy all the more successful.
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ALLERGY DRUGS: DRUG-FREE THERAPY FOR HAY FEVER
Posted on March 25, 2009, under Allergies.
Antihistamines, as you might have guessed, block the release of histamine from mast cells, thereby reducing classic allergy symptoms such as headaches, itching or runny nose. In fact, they may be employed for any allergic reaction that’s blamed on histamine release, like hives. Too much antihistamine, however, can make a person sleepy. And antihistamines tend to dry out mucous membranes. The secretion of those membranes becomes so thick and dry that it can’t be expelled by coughing or sneezing, and it backs up into the sinus or respiratory tract. So what begins as the relatively simple runny nose of hay fever can end up as chronic, painful sinusitis or a stubborn, bone-dry cough – or both. Then you need a decongestant.
Nasal decongestant sprays and drops shrink swollen membranes in the nose and provide temporary relief of hay fever. If decongestants are relied on heavily, however, a rebound phenomenon occurs: after a couple of weeks, when the spray or drops are discontinued, the membranes swell again and congestion is worse than ever. Oral decongestants have their own drawbacks — they’re adrenalin-like, and can make people hyper. So if you’re a high-strung, nervous type, they’re the last thing you need.
As you can see, once a hay fever sufferer boards the drug merry-go-round, it’s sometimes hard to jump off. But herbs, exercise and vitamin Ñ can all help to clear up the congestion and misery of hay fever – without the unpleasant side effects of antihistamines and decongestants.
Certain herbs act as decongestants, clearing clogged mucus. A tea of fenugreek, anise or horehound, or a concoction of garlic oil in water, made into a tea, can clear up congestion in twenty minutes. The vapors of eucalyptus also work wonders: put leaves into a large pot of boiling water and boil for five minutes. Then turn off the heat and, with a towel draped over your head, breathe in the vapors.
Many hay fever sufferers have found that vigorous exercise – running, walking or bicycling – helps to clear the nose, too.
Vitamin Ñ acts as a natural antihistamine, reducing the swelling and inflammation that causes discomfort in nasal and sinus tissues. And, of course, it helps tremendously to avoid whatever triggers your hay fever.
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