Gracey Holistic Health

allergies

Ease seasonal allergies naturally

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After a bunch of Nor’easters pummeled the northeast in March, it’s now actually starting to look and feel more like Spring. While spring rain may bring flowers, it also brings pollen. Which brings seasonal allergies.

If you are allergic to pollen, your immune system sees the pollen as a danger and releases antibodies that attack the allergens. The mistaken threat causes a chemical release of histamines to combat and eliminate the fine, dusty pollen exposed to your body.   

Perhaps you typically battle allergies with a box of Kleenex and a Claritin. But there are other options to stifle the sneezing and ease the itchy eyes.

Acupuncture for allergies

Acupuncture is all about bringing balance to the body. Therefore, treatments are meant to even the imbalance and disruption that the pollen brings to your body’s defensive mechanisms. In addition to addressing the core issues of the immune response, there are, unsurprisingly, acupuncture points I may use on your face and near the nose! Try a couple for yourself:

  • Point 1, known as Large Intestine 20, also (appropriately) termed “welcome fragrance.” Right at the outside base of each nostril, press with your middle fingers diagonally upward, like you’re aiming for your eye on the opposite side of your face.
  • Point 2, known as  Bitong, also (appropriately) termed “free passage of the nose.” To find the point, identify the groves along each side of the nose. Press on the point at the highest point on the groove, just opposite the nose.

Wash your sinuses with a neti pot

What’s a neti pot? It looks like a tea kettle, where the spout is gently placed in the opening of your nose. The saline solution inside gets poured into one nostril and comes out the other.

Since it’s the pollen that you breath in that triggers an immune response, a neti pot can help with easing symptoms by flushing out the little particulates of pollen from your sinus cavity.

Try an anti-inflammatory diet

To me, “eating right” doesn’t just mean eating healthy. It also means eating particular foods that are best suited to your physical disposition. The histamine produced by your immune system from pollen can cause an inflammatory response. This is why allergy medications are called “antihistamines” because they will attempt to reduce inflammation.

But you can also change what you eat to regulate your immune system and reduce inflammation before taking any medication. Here are some great foods for that:

  • Pineapple
  • Salmon
  • Green leafy vegetables
  • Broccoli
  • Coconut oil

Acupuncture for children

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Last week we talked about how holistic medicine can help older patients. But a review of 31 different published articles as old as 2008 has shown that acupuncture is relatively effective with low risk in pediatric cases as well.

“A lot of kids are medication-sensitive, and acupuncture doesn’t have the side effects of medication,” explains Cleveland Clinic Children’s Hospital physical medicine and rehabilitation specialist Benjamin Katholi, MD.

Therefore, acupuncture may be a good solution for children suffering from a wide range of mental or physical problems.

Shakuju Therapy for children

Image above: The hand of Kobayashi Sensei who founded Shakuju Therapy

The review doesn’t  mention use of non-invasive or insertive styles of acupuncture like I practice. Read my blog post on Shakuju Therapy and needles used to learn about how successful acupuncture does not necessarily require the needles to actually puncture the skin.

One of the reasons I like this style of acupuncture is that I find it equally effective while being a “gentler” treatment. Often, I’ve been told that Shakuju Therapy just feels like a light tapping. That’s why, unlike with other styles of acupuncture treatment, I feel comfortable treating infants and young children.

Is acupuncture effective for kids?

Yes! A 2015 study from Rush University Medical Center in Chicago recruited 55 children and teens who’d been “miserable for months with chronic pain and gave them up to eight 30-minute treatments. Every one of these kids reported having significantly less pain after receiving acupuncture. The greatest reductions came right away, after the first few sessions, but their pain continued dwindling throughout the trial. They didn’t have any adverse side effects from the treatments either, except feeling slightly tired after a session,” (not a bad thing…many of my patients report feeling so relaxed that they nod off on the table while being treated or nap afterwards). “Their parents also noticed big improvements in their children’s moods, social lives, and ability to focus at school.”

How is an acupuncture treatment for adults different than that of children?

Specific acupuncture points on the body are the same between children and adults. However, like with most medical treatments, children are more sensitive and respond quicker to acupuncture treatments in my experience.

Therefore, the biggest difference in treatment between adults and children is that children  require milder and less acupuncture stimulation and often see more immediate results. In addition, pediatric acupuncture that I perform on the very young doesn’t involve any needle insertion at all. My approach varies from using a Teishin needle to specific pediatric tools for gentle stimulating energetic pathways on the body.

Perhaps there’s no reason for children to be afraid of needles, anymore!