Advice for Allergy "Season"

Your Nose is Running…Better Go Catch It!

by Dr. Jerry Kennedy

Allergy season is a horrible time of year.  Here in the Midwest, if you want to find someone who suffers with seasonal allergies all you have to do is throw a rock.  You’ll hit one.  Actually, it’s likely that the rock you threw will hit another allergy sufferer on the ricochet.  It’s sort of normal around here.  Well…not normal.  It’s prevalent.  I even remember as a kid taking allergy medicine.  I didn’t have my own.  My mom had a prescription allergy medication and I would take that.  After all, what harm could come from taking someone else’s prescription?

So clearly I haven’t always made the best health care choices.  But thankfully things are different for me as an adult.  I can’t remember the last time I took allergy medication.  It had to have been more than 10 years ago.  Actually, I can’t remember the last time I took any sort of anti-histamine.  And my new found lack of allergies has nothing to do with some sort of quest to find the missing pieces to the allergy puzzle.  It has everything to do with the fact that I started doing things that would help my immune system function at it’s peak.

You see, a runny nose or watery eyes aren’t necessarily bad things.  Even when the body creates all sorts of gross mucus you can’t just jump to the conclusion that something is wrong.  Histamine reactions (ie: runny nose, watery eyes, drainage) are just your body’s way of protecting itself.  If your body determines that something you are breathing in is dangerous to your body, then your immune system reacts to it.  That’s what it is supposed to do.  That’s the way we were created.  The problem isn’t what your body is doing.  The problem is WHEN your body is doing it.

If your body is over-reacting, that’s not a good thing.  If your body reacts to every speck of dust or sliver of fresh cut grass like it’s a health terrorist that is coming to destroy your wellbeing, you end up living your entire life with a stuffed up sinuses and watery eyes.  NO FUN.  But if your body realizes that most of the time dust and fresh cut grass are not anything to react to, then you are considered to be one of the “lucky ones” that don’t suffer with allergy problems.

So the key to going from suffering with allergies and not suffering with allergies (or at least suffering less) is to build up your immune system.  Your immune system is like a muscle.  It can be strong or it can be weak.  And there are a lot of ways to strengthen your immune system.  Most of them are going to involve dietary and lifestyle changes.  Most people don’t want to hear that, but it’s true.

The thing that helped me the most was an area where allergy improvement was most unexpected.  It was after I became an Upper Cervical patient.  I didn’t start care with the intent to improve my allergies.  It never even dawned on me that it was possible that Upper Cervical could help.  I have since learned that my experience is not that uncommon.  One of the most common “unexpected” benefits of Upper Cervical care is an improvement in allergy and sinus problems.  I refer to it as an “unexpected” benefit because we have a lot of patients that, like me, started care for some other reason and the allergy and sinus improvement was a bonus to care.

Technically, Upper Cervical Care isn’t a treatment for allergy and sinus problems.  Upper Cervical is designed to correct misalignments in the upper neck that are causing irritation to the nervous system.  Because the nervous system and the immune system are so closely related, when a patient takes the stress off their nervous system through Upper Cervical Care, they consequently will have less stress to their immune system.  Less stress on the immune system means it becomes stronger and functions properly.  One thing leads to another…yada, yada, yada…and you may just end up living an allergy free life.  That is of course if you are willing to try something different.

Allergies and Asthma... Upper Cervical Care?

(Editor's note: Remember the objective of upper cervical care is to correct head neck misalignment that is interfering with proper brain to body communication. When this is corrected the body functions at a higher level and can often correct other problems more efficiently on its own. Please do not confuse upper cervical care as a treatment for asthma, allergies or any other condition, disease or symptom.)

Asthma & Allergies

The Brain Stem and Breathing

The nervous system is a very complex system designed to control and coordinate the body’s vital functions. One of those functions is to control the respiratory system and lungs. Consider that you can climb a flight of stairs, run, swim, or ride a bike without even thinking about your breathing. That’s because the respiratory center, housed in the brain stem, is responsible for adjusting the rate of breathing to the demands of the body so that proper oxygen and carbon dioxide levels remain unchanged even during strenuous exercise.

Asthma

Asthma involves both the lungs and the immune system and has become the most common and costly illness in the United States. An estimated 17 million Americans suffer from asthma at an annual cost of over $13 billion. Asthma accounts for more hospitalizations than any other childhood disease, and children suffering from asthma miss more than 10 million days of school every year. Nearly 5000 people die from causes related to asthma each year, and it is one of the few diseases with an increasing death rate.

Even though asthma is a common condition, if is far from simple. During an asthma attack, the airways become narrow and obstructed due to a combination of muscle spasm, inflammation, and excess mucus production. The symptoms, which vary among sufferers, include wheezing, shortness of breath, chest tightness and chronic coughing.

Asthma attacks can be triggered by any condition that causes inflammation in the airways. These triggers include irritants like the following: dust mites, animal dander, pollen, mold, pollution, smoke, exercise, cold air, or intense emotions.
Asthma and Allergies

Many asthma sufferers also have allergies, which, although related, differ from asthma. However, allergens like pollen, mold, animal dander, and dust mites can make asthma symptoms worse by increasing inflammation in the airways.
Common Medical Treatments for Asthma

Common medical treatments for asthma include anti-inflammatory drugs, inhaled corticosteroids, or long-acting bronchodilators, names like Singulair, Albuterol, Ventolin, Atrovent. and Prednisone. According to the Physician’s Desk Reference, these drugs can have dangerous side effects.

Possible Causes of Asthma

While the cause of asthma is still unknown, many researchers believe asthma is caused by a disturbance of the respiratory center within the brain stem. In fact, one study suggests this is the “common denominator” and basic underlying mechanism in all varieties of asthma. This disturbance is believed to cause the muscles of the airway to contract thus restricting the flow of air in the lungs.

Upper Cervical Care and the Brain Stem

Misalignments of the top two vertebrae (bones) in the cervical spine (neck) can cause disturbances within the brain stem and respiratory center. Studies have shown that Upper Cervical care dramatically improves lung function. One published report showed that each asthma patient in the study improved from 87% to 100% with Upper Cervical care.

The Cause Of Allergies

I know you have seen them. They are everywhere! People rubbing their eyes, sneezing, sniffling and complaining. Some of them deny it saying, “I do not have allergies,” or, “I never had allergies before” and many others just try to grin and bear it. Knowingly or not, more than 50 million Americans suffer from allergies. The culprits in these most annoying conditions (i.e., the allergen) include some of the most ordinary things, such as cats, dogs, grass, dust, pollen, copper coins, nickel-coated earrings and buttons, insects and insect stings. I once met someone who told me they were allergic to air. I imagine if you are allergic to dust you might as well be allergic to air.

Despite the variety of substances that an individual can or may be allergic to, all allergies result from the same basic cause: an immune system that is unable to distinguish between the harmful and the friendly. This is an extremely important point. Many people have the misconception that it is the dust or the pollen (the allergen) that causes the allergic reaction. It is not! It is the body’s inability to adapt to the allergen that is the problem!!! If pollen were the problem, everyone would have allergic symptoms in the presence of pollen, and that is not the case. Rather, it is the body’s inability to adapt to the allergen that is the problem.

For example, an article in the newspaper noted that the pollen count was almost 50 times above what is considered normal to the Clean Air Council. The purpose of the article was to provide readers with tips on how to control allergic reactions, all of which boiled down to avoiding the allergen. The article noted that the high levels had caused reactions in people who had never experienced them before. At first glance, this might seem to suggest that indeed it is the pollen that is the cause of allergies. However, as long as there are still people who do not develop symptoms in the presence of these unusually high levels of pollen, then pollen is not the cause.

You see, everyone is born with a certain potential for adapting to pollen (as well as to every other allergen), and some have a greater potential to adapt than others. For those who express no symptoms when in the presence of high concentrations of specific allergens, it is because their bodies are working the way they should. Their bodies do not see pollen as harmful (which it is not) and consequently, do not declare war on it by trying to rush it out of the body by either sneezing or washing tears across the eyes. More importantly, while everyone is born with a different potential to adapt to allergens, some may have the potential to adapt but are not fully expressing it because of interference in their nervous systems caused by head/neck misalignment.

The medical world admits that the best way to treat any allergy is to avoid the allergens that cause it, but how does one avoid air or dust. We suggest that one of the best things you can do for allergies is to be sure your nervous system is free from interference with Upper Cervical Care so your body can work at its highest potential to recognize what is harmful and what is not.