Image by Hans from Pixabay
“The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind.” Bob Dylan
Well, Mr. Bob Dylan may know a lot about life, but he doesn’t know beans about allergies!
More accurately, “The answer, my friend, is how your body responds to what is blowing in the wind.” Not very poetic, but very accurate.
Have you ever wondered why some people have allergies and some don’t? Me too! It is always surprising to me that some people have to stay indoors at certain times of the year and avoid exposure to mother nature. They end up living on over the counter meds, benadryl, or something stronger, prescribed by an RD (real doctor). And if you use the excuse of “it just runs in the family” then your chances of significant improvement in your health is exchanged for merely suppressing symptoms.
Let me make a case for something different.
Let’s start with this truth: humans are meant to be in the environment, and interact with it and adapt to it. I know that is a mouthful but being outside in all kinds of weather (and wind) in all four seasons is normal. We are designed to be able to adapt to what we encounter in nature. For instance, too much heat equals sweat. Too much cold equals shivering. Too much wind, lean into it or get blown over. (Windbreakers are a nice adaptation too) We are made to be in nature and adapt to it.
Why then, do so many people suffer from allergies and have problems when they encounter nature?
The answer, my friend, rather than blowing in the wind, might surprise you. Read on…
Allergies, with common symptoms like runny nose and itchy, watery eyes and breathing difficulties, are what our bodies produce when we encounter something our body doesn’t like. Why doesn’t our body like it? Somehow the allergen (the thing that provokes the response, like pet hair, or coconuts or pollen) gains access to our blood stream either through our lungs, leaky gut, or a wound. The body produces an immune response to this foreign substance, a response it remembers. Each time the immune system encounters the allergen, the immune system is activated, and things called immunoglobulins, mast cells and basophils jump into action.
And histamine is released.
Histamine is the substance that typically produces the symptoms. It is your immune system’s way of getting rid of invaders. But histamine is not the problem. Your body makes it for a reason but it also needs to break it down and get rid of it when the invaders are gone. If it hangs around too long, all kinds of bad stuff can happen, like migraines.
Contrast this to the medical approach of suppressing the release of histamine. This is usually accomplished by people taking over-the-counter antihistamines. They do stop the histamines for sure, but that is a bad choice. Histamine is part of the healing response and stopping it before it has played its part, makes allergies all the worse.
A better choice is to break down histamine after it has done its job.
Great! How?
By cleaning up your liver of course! The breakdown of histamine is beyond the scope of this blog but suffice it to say, besides your intestines, your liver plays a critical role. If you regularly experience allergies, the likelihood that your liver is congested and not functioning full bore is pretty high. Doesn’t it make sense to feed the liver so that it can break down the histamine and prevent its accumulation in your body that produces unwanted symptoms?
Why do some people’s bodies over react and produce symptoms? Simply put the circulating levels of histamine in your bloodstream are higher than normal and the liver simply cannot keep up with breaking histamine down.
The answer, my friend, is not blowing in the wind.
The answer is cleaning up your liver.
We have several products to do just that. Abbey will be writing about them both, Antronex and Allerplex from Standard Process, next.
Cheers,
ks