Typical Causes of Allergies

Allergies are very common, especially ones that come from airborne allergens. Affecting more than 50 million Americans every year, allergies are the sixth most frequent source of chronic illness.

Hay fever, also known as allergic rhinitis, is a reaction to pollen produced by grass, trees or other plants during spring, summer or fall.

And it’s not just blooming plants that can cause your discomfort. Some people suffer from perennial allergies to a variety of airborne substances. Common allergens around your home include:

• Mold growing in dark, damp areas
• Dander shed from your cat or dog—skin cells that cling to surfaces in your house
• Dust from allergy-triggering dust mites

Typical airborne allergy symptoms include runny nose, sneezing, sinus headaches, coughing, sore throat, fatigue, and itchy, watery eyes.

Of course, allergic reactions come from other sources, too:

• Substances (such as poison ivy) that contact the skin, causing rashes and hives
• Foods—most commonly wheat, milk, tree nuts, peanuts, eggs, fish, and soy
• Drugs
• Insect bites

Allergic reactions to foods, medications, and insect bites can be the most serious, causing medical emergencies such as anaphylaxis that impair breathing.

Allergies and Your Immune System

What do all of these different forms of allergies have in common?

They’re all directly tied to the performance of your immune system.

When your immune system is working normally, it defends you against harmful invaders like viruses, bacteria and diseases.

But sometimes the immune system can go into overdrive, fighting against harmless substances. Your immune cells produce histamines, triggering those allergy symptoms.

To function properly, your immune system depends on your nervous system to carry messages between your brain and body through the spinal cord.

And this is where chiropractic care comes in.

How Your Chiropractor Treats Allergies  

Your nervous system relies on a properly aligned spine to relay its all-important signals to your immune and respiratory systems.

When your spine is out of alignment, vital communication is disrupted, and your nervous system can’t perform at its best.

As a spine specialist, your chiropractor will assess any misalignment and create an individual treatment plan for you. A spinal adjustment aligns your spine, allowing your nervous system to properly regulate your immune and respiratory systems.

Many people take antihistamines and other drugs for their allergies, and experience side effects such as drowsiness, dry mouth and headaches. Chiropractic care works naturally, helping you to reduce or eliminate your need for medications. Treatments address the source of problems, rather than just the symptoms.

Your chiropractor provides holistic, whole-body care that can improve your allergies and overall health.

Schedule Your Complimentary Consultation at Eastern Oklahoma Chiropractic

To start feeling better, contact our Broken Arrow office at 918-940-4630 today.

The post Natural Care for Allergies from Your Chiropractor first appeared on Chiropractor Broken Arrow.

“We have higher temperatures and increasing levels of carbon dioxide,” Dr. Jeffrey Demain, a board-certified allergist and immunologist, said at the March meeting of the American Academy of Allergy Asthma and Immunology.

“The allergy season throughout the year is getting longer, as much as 27 days longer than they were even seven to 10 years ago increasing the opportunity for exposure to allergies”, Demain said. “A staggering 25 percent of our population has some form of allergic disease. These issues are going to affect a vast number of people throughout the world.”

What can you do to help?

Before rushing to the medicine cabinet to hush the body’s response to allergens, important information provides a safer alternative to treating allergies. People need to understand the cause of allergies.  Why certain people suffer from symptoms and others do not? Pollen gets most of the credit for causing allergies, but that assessment provides only a partial explanation. Pollen definitely represents a stressor to the body. However, failed adaptation remains the critical element in avoiding or overcoming allergies. If ten people walk into a room filled with pollen, only half or fewer will experience allergy symptoms. The difference rests in the body’s ability to recognize and adapt to the pollen. In fact, a lower ability to adapt will trigger an allergic response to the stressor of pollen. Itchy eyes, congestion, a runny nose, and sneezing soon follow.

An adaptation analogy involves filling a bucket with water. The bucket (body) possesses a capacity to withstand the presence of water (allergens). Allergens like pollen populate the bucket but the bucket houses the contents without issue until the quantity of water exceeds the capacity of the bucket. The body’s ability to adapt represents the size of the bucket and how much water can be held before overflowing. People unaffected by allergies possess a larger adaptation bucket that never reaches the body’s capacity to deal with allergens.

The body can adapt and combat the majority of allergens. Many other factors also help the body fight allergens by improving adaptability. Chiropractic and postural care serve as a powerful ally. Results of a 2010 study have shown people under Chiropractic care experienced higher levels of immune-producing antibodies in the blood. Specific antibodies help minimize the effects of allergy-inducing agents. Diet, exercise, and emotional health also play important roles in minimizing the effects of allergies.

Should I take medication during allergy season?

Medical doctors recommended anti-histamine drugs as a primary allergy solution. However, those drugs produce harmful side effects and never resolve the core cause of the problem, meaning people continually ingest these drugs without hope for permanent resolution. Allergy sufferers need a drugless solution to combat allergy symptoms. This is where we come in… Chiropractic provides a safe and drugless solution to help address the cause of dysfunction which contributes to so many symptoms. Chiropractic helps the body adapt and fight back.

Support the body’s ability to combat pollen and other agents during allergy season with these tips:

• Regular chiropractic care and good posture at computer desks or workstations.
• Reduce the consumption of sugar and refined processed carbohydrates (grains, etc).
• Reduce stress through mind-body practices such as yoga, breathing, and meditation.
• Increase activity – walking, jogging, high-intensity interval training, and resistance training.
• Increase water consumption (50% of body weight in ounces).

The post EXPERTS: Allergy Season Continues to Worsen… Chiropractic Provides Relief for Allergy Sufferers first appeared on Chiropractor Broken Arrow.

Many people feel it’s simply “okay” to have allergies because they know so many that suffer as well.  It’s absolutely normal to have days, weeks, or months at a time with persistent coughs, sneezing, wheezing, and blowing but guess what… It’s not “normal”.  Millions are spent yearly on over-the-counter medication, weekly shots, and doctor visits to try to help with allergies often to no avail.  While the toll on those who suffer from allergies is immense, it brings great profits to the pharmaceutical companies in the form of drugs and other medical treatments.  The sad fact is, many people do not even question why their children or even themselves have allergies.  As odd as it sounds, it has become an accepted fact of life with no apparent solution.  Why is that?

What makes one person allergic and another not?  Why would one child be allergic to cats, dogs, fur, feathers, grass, pollen, and even food like peanut butter and eggs?  We all live on the same planet, exposed to the same things and our physiology is basically the same throughout our species but some suffer and others do not?  The difference is, one individual is able to adapt to their environment while another is not.  To put it simply, an allergy is the inability of your body to handle something it’s an immediate environment (animals, grass, pollen, dust, peanut butter, etc).  We most often see a hypersensitivity to the offending allergen but again, why are some hypersensitive and others not?  And more importantly, what can we do to solve the problem rather than continually treat it?

The answer to the above question is where chiropractic comes in… You see, in chiropractic, we don’t treat people for conditions.  Our goal is simply to restore balance to the body and allow it to function how it was designed and programmed to function.  The chiropractic adjustment is what helps you get back to “normal” and in this case, free from the allergic response.  Just like the heart, lungs, liver, pancreas, kidneys, etc, the sinus cavities and mucous glands in the nose, mouth, and throat are controlled and coordinated through the nervous system which is the master control system that handles every body function.  By locating and correcting vertebral subluxations through chiropractic adjustment, we can restore balance and harmony to the nervous system and allow it to function like it was created to function.  We often see a reduction or elimination in the allergic response in patients that are receiving regular chiropractic adjustments.  We would love to sit down with you and yours to show you how we can be of assistance.  Chiropractic isn’t the only solution, but it is often the most effective and appropriate.  Give us a call at 918-940-4630 or visit our website at http://www.easternoklahomachiropractic.com to schedule your FREE consultation.

The post Allergies killing you? Try the chiropractic solution. first appeared on Chiropractor Broken Arrow.