Spring is here ! šøā¦and so are your allergies
Spring allergies
Richmond is one of the top āallergy capitalsā in the US and many are feeling it as we turn the corner out of Winter.
Whether you have good control of your allergies or want better answers for your allergies, a Functional medicine approach can give you a lot more options and deeper treatments for your allergies.
Here are several approaches that can provide relief, prevent or even stop allergies from happening at all:
The Sinus Microbiome & Sinus Probiotics
Have you heard of the gut microbiome? Microbes, including bacteria, viruses, yeast and even parasites, have gotten a bad rap in the 20th century. The vast majority are actually a normal or even necessary part of human life. In the 21st, we now know that microbes are our friends and that a healthy person is covered in microbiomes. Each part of our body in fact has a specialized microbiome unique to it.
Important for allergies, this includes our sinuses and respiratory passages. Like the gut, our sinuses and the inside of our lungs are actually outside of our body, and so are covered with microbes. The immune system that lines the mucosal membranes of our sinuses and gut is must keep a balance between tolerance for the outside world and protecting against it. Both our sinus and gut have to let in what we need for life (oxygen, nutrients) but also defend against anything else trying to get it.
You can see that this could be a difficult balance to keep. This is why our gut and sinuses can be prone to reacting against the wrong things, leading to environmental allergies and food intolerances. And just as we now know that probiotics are an important part of supporting a healthy gut immune response and lowering inflammation, we now are understanding that the same is true for allergies, asthma and other respiratory conditions.-0102-0
Recent research tells us that restoring a healthy sinus microbiome is an important part of relieving chronic allergies and sinus infections. Specifically the probiotic lactobacillus sakei was found to prevent the recurrence of sinus infections. Inoculating your sinuses with this probiotic seems to help calm and rebuild the sinus microbiome-immune response in your nose.
Clinically, I have found that daily inoculation with this probiotic helps alleviate sinus infections and, like taking probiotics for an upset gut, seems to help calm sinus inflammation.
Also like the gut microbiome, giving probiotics alone may not solve everything. You may need a more complex treatment plan to restore a healthy sinus microbiome and re-balance the immune response. Since the sinusā and gutsā mucosal immune systems are so similar and connected, healing the gut is also an important step to preventing or resolving seasonal allergies.
Sinus rinses
Saline sinus rinses can clear out excess mucus and inflammation that, when kicked up by allergies, can create a downward spiral of inflammation and infection.
You can boost the efficacy and help treat a disordered sinus microbiome by using specialized sinus-safe ābiofilm bustersā and antimicrobial nasal sprays.
What are ābiofilm busters?ā These are agents, such as xylitol, that break down the mucus-like protective colonies that all microbes live in. Biofilms protect microbes from attack, allow them to communicate with each other, share DNA, evolve and better adapt to their environment.
Biofilm busters break up these protective barriers, both relieving congestion and better enabling the next step, antimicrobials, to get rid of infections.
You can follow sinus rinses (with or without biofilm busters) with gentle, sinus-safe antimicrobials. Colloidal silver is gentle and an effective topical antimicrobial.
You can then follow sinus rinses and antimicrobial sprays with the lactobacillus probiotic therapy (above). This will help re-seed the sinus microbiome with healthy bacteria and prevent further infections and allergies.
Natural antihistamines
Histamine is one of the main ābad guysā that causes allergies. It is actually necessary for all sorts of normal, healthy functions like alertness, digestion and fighting off invaders. But in the case of allergies, too much of it is being produced in the wrong places unnecessarily.
Over-the-counter antihistamines can be game-changing, but did you know there are many natural substances that are also antihistamine? Many of them are also antioxidants and/or contain important polyphenols and other micronutrients that do things like support healthy mitochondria (the energy producing machines in our cells) and calm inflammation in other ways.
A popular natural go-to antihistamine for allergies is quercetin. Quercetin has also received a lot of publicity recently around its ability to calm the severe inflammatory response from COVID-19. Others natural antihistamines include nettles, pycnogenol, luteolin and perimine.
You can make a tea decoction of nettles and sip on it continuously throughout the day or take 500mg -1 gram of quercetin (with bromelain to help it be used) 1-2 times per day. These natural antihistamine-nutrient powerhouses can also be used in combination and along with OTC antihistamines, as they can have different, additive and synergistic effects.
Functional medicine: Treating the Underlying Causes: The Gut Microbiome.
Another way of getting rid or at least reducing allergies is to treat underlying health issues that can lead to, or exacerbate, them. This is exactly what we do in Functional medicine. Step 1 of any allergy program is to treat the gut.
Remember that sinus-gut microbiome connection? Well 70-80% of the entire immune system is located in the gut. Do you notice that some things you eat cause you to have more nasal-dripping, congestion and phlegm in your sinuses or throat? Thatās a reaction of your gut immune system to what you are eating that is being echoed in your sinuses and respiratory tract.
Eat an unprocessed, low/no sugar, plant and nutrient rich diet.
Step one for a healthy sinus and gut immune system is what we eat. Fundamentally this means a whole-foods, unprocessed and nutrient dense diet. And remember, it is just as important to remove the inflammatory, processed junk (flour, sugar, chemicals) as it is to include the nutrient-dense foods. Think colorful plants and organic animal products like fatty fish, mineral-rich oysters, mussels, clams and bison meat, organ meats or even simply cooking with the whole animal, bones, skin and all.
Test and treat the gut microbiome.
Nutrition can make or break your health. But if your gut microbiome is out of balance, diet is just the first step. You may or may not even have obvious digestive symptoms, but with 70-80% of our entire immune system in our gut, issues here can have body-wide effects for inflammation.
How do you figure out if your gut microbiome is out of whack? At InHealthRVA we do in-depth testing from Genova and Doctorās Data to determine if you have too much of the wrong kind of bacteria or yeast, not enough of the good probiotic bacteria or other functional gut health issues. Then design a targeted protocol to heal your gut and move on.
LDI/LDA
Want to get rid of your allergies all together? Low dose immunotherapy/antigen therapy can āretrainā a type of immune cell, T-cells, to stop reacting to otherwise harmless targets (like pollen!)
How does it work? LDI works similarly to allergy shots, but is a much lower dose and is taken orally. We start you out at a dose several times lower than expected to be therapeutic in order to avoid any reactions. Then titrate up until a positive response (no reaction to allergen) is noted. Once we find your correct therapeutic dose, you only need an oral dose once every seven weeks.
Is LDI/LDA a homeopathic technique? No actually. It is well established in immunology (the study of the immune system) that you can create tolerance against an allergen through introducing minute amounts of the same antigen to the oral mucosal immune system.
Are there risks? The same as with allergy shots, if you get too high a dose for your needs, you will āflareā with the same symptoms that we are targeting. Flares are temporary and we will treat them if they occur. But that is why we start at a much lower than anticipated therapeutic dose, and mindfully titrate up to find your effective dose.
Interested in trying LDI/LDA?
Let us know and we will put you on the waitlist and look out for more info and announcements as we will be offering this at InHealthRVA soon!
We hope these tips help you have a much more pleasant allergy season in 2022.
Need help figuring your health out? We are here to help! At InHealthRVA we can help you address your health concerns and support your long-term wellness. A premier Functional Medicine and integrative health center in Virginia, we are committed to serving our community and providing the highest level of care available. Click the button below to schedule a consultation today!