Allergy Season is Here – Quick Do a Family Cleanse!

Spring is finally upon us and with it comes the sneezing, sniffling, itching, burning, wheezing, and irritibility of allergies.  It is not too late to nip these symptoms in the bud with a family cleanse.  If you and your family do a cleanse now, you can lower the inflammation in your body and help your immune system calm down to decrease the allergic response.

I’ve written, before, about my older daughter who is now 7.  This week she’s had eczema pop up on the inside of her elbows and she’s been sneezing and rubbing her nose and scratching her entire body.  Poor kid.  The other day she said to me with exacerbation, “Mom, when are we doing our family cleanse?!”  And I had to admit that with birthday parties and life’s general craziness, I hadn’t gotten around to it.  Sigh. Another parenting fail.

However, this week is the week we’ll start.  Ours is pretty straightforward – no wheat, no dairy (except butter), no sugar, no corn products, and no junk food.  For the grown ups – no alcohol or caffeine.  I give a homeopathic cleansing combo to the kids and my husband and I take a stronger herbal combo.  This year I might throw in some natural anti-histamines since both my daughter and I have started our symptoms.

The idea is to give the body a break from foods that may increase inflammation and trigger the histamine response.  My daughter and I can generally get away with a little wheat and sugar here and there if we’re guests for dinner or at a party but during allergy season, nope.

The theory is that the inflammatory response in the body has a threshold where, when reached, it goes whole hog and creates symptoms to get rid of invaders – runny nose to flush out the nasal passageways, runny eyes to flush them out, and, well, you get the idea.  The trouble with allergies is that the body creates this response over non-threatening invaders like pollen and grasses.  We can’t control the amount of pollens and grasses – so those are going to bring us closer to our threshold, but we can control our food.  If we keep “offensive” foods out of the diet, we’re going to avoid getting closer to the inflammatory threshold, therefore avoiding that allergic response.

The theory makes sense to me and I’ve seen great results with myself, my daughter and my patients.  If you’d like guidance with foods and cleansing products, check in with your naturopathic doctor.  Here’s to feeling better!