Healing Foods to Boost Your Immune System

Continuing on the topic of seasonal allergies, let's look at some basic dietary shifts that can help alleviate seasonal allergies:

• Local, raw honey is a super-food that powerfully boosts the immune system because you are ingesting small amounts of local pollens. Local raw honey can be purchased at your neighborhood farmer's market. Start by eating a 1/4 teaspoon per day. Other immune-boosting foods include: mushrooms (especially shitake and maitake) and fermented foods (like sauerkraut, fermented pickles and other vegetables, kim chi, kombucha, kefir soda, whey soda, and other fermented foods).
• Eat quercitin-rich foods which naturally inhibit histamines. These include: garlic, red and yellow onions, apples (with the skin on), red grapes, green and black tea, and berries.

More Tips to Alleviate Seasonal Allergies

• A Neti pot is an ayurvedic healing method to wash out the sinuses with a saline solution. This method clears the nasal passages of allergens as well as decreases inflammation in the mucous membranes. It can be challenging to use but is really worth the effort. My patients report feeling much better very quickly using this daily.

• I also recommend showering and changing your clothes after being outdoors. Your clothes, skin and hair will collect pollens and bring them indoors. Washing these off of your body will help alleviate constant exposure to allergens. This is especially important before bed, as the pollen on your hair gets on your pillow, causing nighttime exposure to allergens.

• Finally, stay hydrated by drinking fresh water.

More Tips to Alleviate Seasonal Allergies

It's the height of allergy season right now. Spring flowers and trees are in full bloom. Patients are suffering with runny nose, congestion, headaches, watery eyes, itchy eyes, increased phlegm, sore throat, cough, and asthma. Chinese Medicine offers a natural approach to help alleviate these allergy symptoms. Even better, with continued care, TCM can help decrease the severity and occurance of allergies, using a combination of acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine, and nutrition.

The next few posts will include tips to decrease seasonal allergies. These are a great starting place for overall health. Here's the first tip:

Eat organic whole foods and take the chemicals out of your diet. Packaged and processed foods are difficult for the body to process and deplete the immune system. Eat fresh, whole foods like fresh fruits and vegetables, pastured meat and wild fish, whole grains, beans, nuts, legumes, and healthy fats like ghee, olive oil and coconut oil.

Acupuncture for Allergies

While the spring brings with it warmer weather and a sense of rebirth, for many, it also brings on the dreaded seasonal allergies. As a result, millions of dollars are spent every year on allergy medications and shots, which often provide only mild relief.

Allergies are caused by an over-reactivity of the immune system to certain allergens such as wind-born tree, grass, or weed pollen. Sneezing, nasal congestion, runny nose, headaches, fatigue, coughing, wheezing and watery, itchy, or red eyes are common symptoms. In addition, when allergens and antibodies react nasal mucosa becomes swollen and may obstruct drainage from the sinuses causing sinusitis in many people.

Western doctors may prescribe antihistamines. Unfortunately, these remedies only treat the manifestation of the condition. Not only that, but many of these medications cause side effects such as dizziness, fatigue, insomnia, nervousness, dryness, and gastro-intestinal issues.

From a Chinese medicine point of view, allergies are due to an imbalance in the immune system, namely, a deficiency of the body’s Defensive-Qi, combined with the presence of chronic "Wind" or external pathogen in the nose and eyes. A practitioner will use herbs and acupuncture to clear the Wind, reduce congestion, open the nasal passages, relieve itchiness and clear the eyes. This is treatment of the manifestation of the condition. But Chinese medicine does not stop there. The real strength of the medicine is its ability to address the underlying root of the condition, namely, the weakness in the immune system in the face of such overpowering external stressors: the allergens. Together, both the root and the manifestation of the condition are treated to produce lasting results. Receiving acupuncture treatments during the season in which you suffer from allergies can diminish your symptoms and shorten the duration of or eliminate altogether the allergy season. There is also a special classical Chinese medicine treatment administered at the height of the summer heat to help strengthen the lungs and immune system. This treatment addresses longterm asthma, seasonal allergies, and chronic colds. Please be sure to schedule appointments in mid July to early August to catch this short window of time!

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Five Seasons began using these dermatological creams in late 2008 and has seen great results treating acne, eczema, psoriasis, and other skin ailments.

Part 2: Itch, Itch, Scratch, Scratch: 3 Allergy Cases

(Note: This entry is a continuation of the previous entry. Best to read in order for full effect!)

What compelled each patient to seek out Chinese medicine care was the very insufferable and at times incapacitating symptom of itchy skin, or pruritis. As someone with a history of hay fever since a child, complete with ceaseless itchy eyes and nose, I can empathize completely. According to traditional Chinese medicine, the symptom of itchy skin is generally thought to be caused by ‘wind’. Traditional Chinese medicine categorizes external pathogenic agents into wind, heat, cold, damp, and dryness. Each one of these agents has a particular nature and acts in specific ways in the body. As Nigel Wiseman states in Fundamentals of Chinese Medicine, the nature of wind as a pathogenic agent in the body is similar to our understanding of “the meteorological phenomenon from which the name is derived: it comes and goes quickly, moves swiftly, blows intermittently.” Itchy skin travels around the body, appears and disappears, intensifies and calms down without warning.

In the three cases outlined in the previous entry, we see that there are, in fact, a multitude of contributing factors—environmental, emotional, physical, genetic, and lifestyle-related—that coalesce to cause the chief complaint of itchy skin. Many of my patients tell me, for example, that they have had allergy tests or they have eliminated certain foods or that it doesn’t run in the family, but they still do not know what one thing is causing these symptoms. What I have found is that there is no one thing but rather it is the combination of multiple factors over time that has led to their hypersensitivity.

We cannot ignore the global changes that challenge our immune systems on a daily basis—especially for those of us who live in urban or industrial areas. Air, water, and food pollutants are becoming more potent and the global temperature is rising at an alarming rate. Together these conditions create a toxic environment that sets the stage for bacterial and viral epidemics and infections. In Case 1, the patient’s prolonged exposure to direct environmental pollutants at his workplace may have overwhelmed an otherwise healthy constitution.

In addition to the mounting strength of environmental stressors and pollutants, our demanding lifestyles also wears us down and prevents us from eating regular, home-cooked meals, getting adequate sleep and ample downtime. All three patients are professionals with very demanding jobs that often require long workdays.

Other lifestyle stressors also include overindulgence in certain recreational activities. Although the patient from Case 2 exercises regularly, she has a ten-year history of smoking, social drinking and coffee intake. Over time, these habits create heat in her system. Rather than be released properly from the bowels, urethra and through the pores, the heat is trapped inside.

Our emotional health is also a contributing factor to the health of our skin. The patient in Case 2 experienced emotional ‘stagnation’ due to unfulfilled desires and feeling ‘stuck’ or frustrated in her life. These feelings are not simply metaphors for what is physically and energetically occurring in the body but actually prevents the free circulation of qi and blood in her body. This impeded circulation further traps the mounting heat in her system. Her cold hands and feet, yet warm torso is indicative of this impeded circulation. Poor circulation and trapped heat only need small triggers like increased physical activity to cause skin outbreaks on her torso.

The patient in Case 3 presents differently from the other two in that there is a good deal of qi deficiency, or overall weakness, of her physical functioning. This may be due to her genetic make-up or from long-term weakness stemming from her childhood. This patient has a childhood history of eczema, asthma, and seasonal allergies—all signs of immune, respiratory and digestive compromise. The patient’s difficulty in warming up, reduced appetite and low energy are indicative of her body’s hypo-functioning. In this case, part of her treatment plan includes building up her internal strength so that the body can begin to self-regulate and become less susceptible to external pathogens.

Thus, in all three cases we see examples of external pathological agents mixing with existing internal imbalances. Each case is unique but each presents with the same symptom of itchy skin. In all three cases, I used a modification of the formula Xiao Feng San, or Eliminate Wind Powder. This formula combines wind dispersing, heat clearing, dampness eliminating and blood cooling medicinals. With skin disharmonies, it is often important to treat the blood because the quality of the blood and smooth circulation of blood is important to healthy skin. The blood must be nutrient rich so it can nourish the skin and tissues. And the blood must be able to reach and circulate to the outer layers of skin. Hence, blood cooling herbs reduce toxicity in the blood. Other herbs are also added to improve the quality of the blood and to invigorate its movement.

This formula was amended to suit the specific needs of each patient. In Case 1, strong toxicity reducing herbs were added to the formula to combat the invading external pathogens. In Case 2, general constitutional heat clearing, qi moving and spirit calming herbs were added to address the other presenting disharmonies that contributed to the itchy skin. And in Case 3, qi supplementing herbs were added to strengthen her core energy so that the body slowly learned to heal itself.

Hence, we see that treating the symptom of itchy skin is not enough. Each person’s presentation, constitution and health history is unique and require custom-tailored care. As a Chinese medicine practitioner, I must uncover the overall disharmony in the whole person and strategically find ways to best relieve the presenting itchiness, treat the root cause of the imbalance, and strengthen and nurture the body so that it can continue to stay strong and healthy.

Itch, Itch, Scratch, Scratch: 3 Allergy Cases, Part 1

Recently I have had an unusually large number of new patients coming to me with complaints of allergies and allergy-like symptoms—and all before the influx of patients suffering from springtime hay fever are expected to come in for treatment. Many of the complaints have been dermatological in nature. All of a sudden (or seemingly so), adults with no history of seasonal, food or environmental allergies nor history of any type of skin disorder are finding themselves increasingly hypersensitive. Most have undergone extensive allergy testing, but even when the foods they are thought to be allergic to are eliminated from their diet, the symptoms do not disappear. I would like to present three cases I’ve seen recently of ‘itchy skin,’ all with rather different presentations and different histories—and now they are finding relief with Chinese medicine! In the next entry (coming very soon, I promise!) I will discuss how Chinese medicine understands these conditions and how acupuncture and variations of two classical Chinese herbal formulas have been helpful in alleviating the condition and building up their core strength so they will be less vulnerable to the ‘itch, itch, scratch, scratch’.

Case 1:

A man in his early 40s has been suffering from ‘itchy skin’ for one and a half years. It began in the summertime. He is strong and athletic and bikes and plays basketball weekly. The itchiness worsens after activity and sometimes if he just scratches it. Areas on his limbs, chest, stomach, and scalp break out into welt-like hives, or uticaria. But in general, the itchiness aggravates him more when he is stationary, especially while sleeping. Four years ago during the summer, he started noticing hay fever symptoms of itchiness, nasal congestion and difficulty breathing. Claritin relieved the symptoms for one year but then ceased working. Around the same time, he was working as an engineer in a chemical plant. A few years ago, he had a couple of false positive HIV blood tests but subsequent tests have all come out negative. After a series of allergy tests to attempt to determine the cause of his reactions, he found that he was allergic to apples, pears, peanut butter and melon. He eliminated these foods from his diet but still continues to present with the same issues. This is when he decided to try Chinese medicine.

Case 2:

A woman in her late 20s came in with the main complaint of ‘itchy skin’ which began four years ago after she was “heartbroken.” The skin rash presents as small red bumps on her torso that is triggered by stress, exercise, or hot and humid weather. The bumps do not meld to form patches but at times they form pustules and exude clear liquid. The condition is worse in the summertime. Ever since she was a child, she has had sensitive skin that easily turns pink and red, especially when she wears synthetic fabrics. She also had sore throats often as a child. She is lactose-intolerant and recently has noticed allergic reactions (hives) to nuts. Although she says her torso feels warm to the touch, she herself feels cold. She is often thirsty and sometimes has nightsweats. Her gums occasionally bleed. The patient has smoked cigarettes for 10 years and drinks alcohol and coffee regularly. Emotionally, she has been feeling “stuck” and not sure of her next step professionally and with her intimate relationships.

Case 3:

A woman in her 30s came to see me also with the main complaint of ‘itchy skin.’ This patient differs from the other two because she clearly has a much longer history of allergies. She has had a history of ‘eczema’ since she was a child, although the diagnosis was not confirmed. She also had asthma as a child. It appears in small concentrated areas on her body and tends to move around. It is worse around her waistband or around the seams of her clothing, wherever there is constriction. But she also notices it on her limbs, her eyes, back, buttocks, knees or more recently, on her face. But in general, it is located on her lower extremity. It first appears as small red bumps that itch intensely. The more she scratches, the worse it becomes until they meld together to form patches. Then when the itchiness ‘settles down’, small dark discolored spots remain. She has treated it with topical corticosteroid cream that has helped to resolve some of the patches, but then they simply appear in another area. The itchy skin is exacerbated by direct contact, heat and humidity as well as very dry weather. It is worse in the extreme temperatures of winter and summer. The patient also suffers from other allergy symptoms such as sneezing, itchy nose, eyes and throat. She has seasonal allergies and is allergic to dust, dander. She also has an interesting symptom where the drastic change from darkness to light causes her to sneeze. These allergy symptoms seem to run in the family. The patient tends to feel cold and her energy is low. She is rarely thirsty and her appetite is low. She finds that her mood is general even keeled but she would like to feel more enthused. This is when she came in to see me.

Stay Tuned!