From what I am hearing, there are a lot people dealing with allergies right now.
We went from almost 2 feet of snow to it all melting and now people are suffering from allergies. It’s hard to believe!
I had a patient yesterday who could barely lie on his stomach because he couldn’t breath. When I asked him why he was having difficulty breathing, he said he had allergies and was super stuffed up.
To get rid of them, he said he takes allergy medicine every day. The allergy medicine that he is taking is an antihistamine. Not sure it was working very well as he was still terribly stuffed up.
If you deal with allergies, I think one of the big questions should be, why do I have so much histamine in the first place.
Everyone of us makes histamine and then stores it in specific cells, especially immune cells called mast cells, for a time that we need it.
We release histamine when fighting an infection or if we get injured. We also use is to help us to block the sleep cycle. This is why an antihistamine can help fight allergies but make us drowsy at the same time.
The problem with an allergy is that a person releases histamine against a substance that is not a foreign invader such as pollen.
This is a problem with the immune system.
You can also just have too much histamine floating around and your body does a very poor job of eliminating it. This is a problem with a couple of enzymes we have called DAO (diamine oxidase) and HNMT (Histamine N-methyltransferase) that help us eliminate histamine.
The big question is, what do you do about it? Is there anything you can do about it? Am I doomed to taking antihistamines for the rest of my life? Will I have a runny nose the rest of my life?
It is really up to you but there are so many things that you can do to reduce your symptoms and maybe even get rid of your allergies.
Taking the approach of working on the immune system and eliminating histamine, let’s start with the immune system.
The immune system has two sides to it, the dark side and the good side – just kidding although many people have approached it this way. There is an intracellular side to the immune system (Th1) and an extracellular side (Th2). The two need to be in balance.
The problem is when one side is way over active than the other.
I think many of us have heard that we want to supercharge our immune system but you may have wondered that if allergies are due to an overactive immune system why would we want to increase the immune system.
The goal is to boost the side that is under active which will calm down the side that is over active. Supporting T regulatory cells (TH3) and driving T helper cells (Th17) to become Th2 are also great ways to help. Here is a great article by Joe Cohen on the topic
This can be done by making sure your vitamin D levels are between 50-80 nano-grams/ml. If it is low taking 1000 IU for each 10 points you want to raise it is a good rule of thumb but it may take more.
Vitamin A helps calm down the immune system and brings balance. It is good to work with a qualified health practitioner in determining your need.
Drive Th17 to become Th1 or Th2 by taking turmeric,cinnamon and Boswelia.
These will help reduce the production of histamine by balancing the immune system.
We can also reduce histamine by making sure you have a healthy gut.
When we eat food, our immune system along our gut lining work to kill bacteria that is on our food. The immune system will release histamine as one the mechanisms to kill the bacteria. If a person reacts to foods, this can also cause the immune system to release histamine.
What’s really interesting is that bacteria will also release histamine to protect itself as well.
This doesn’t usually cause a problem except if you have a comprised gut lining or a “leaky gut.” Now the histamine can get into your body. More histamine means more inflammation!
In order to get rid of histamine we use two enzymes. DAO and HNMT. If a person has a genetic variant which cause those enzymes to not work efficiently, histamine will just keep building up.
Having allergies can be a sign that you have poor functioning DAO and/or HNMT.
To support those enzymes there are lots you can do.
Eating foods high in copper and calcium will both support your DAO enzyme.
Copper can be found in asparagus and almonds while calcium is found in such foods as spinach, kale and brocolli.
Your HNMT enzyme can be supported by supporting the methylation cycle. Foods high in folate such as spinach, kale, green lettuce as well as foods that are high in B12 and methionine such as grass fed beef help support the cycle.
Dr. Ben Lynch, the expert in genetic variants, has a great article.
Avoiding foods that are high in histamine can also be very helpful. Dr. Amy Myers has a great article that includes a list of foods to avoid.
Many of the above tips can really help with your allergies but they may not be all that you are dealing with. We see many patients in our office who have allergies which is stacked on many other health issues that need to be addressed. Solving those problems on your own can be difficult to impossible. Our hope is that trying the things above improve your allergies significantly. If they don’t, we can help!
