Allergy Care with Homeopathy...Part 2

So one of the first questions I ask a client who is suffering with allergies is, “are you taking a good quality probiotic every day?”

This is one of the most readily available and easiest things you can do for your allergies.

There are many good brands out there, both at your local health food store and in many pharmacies and supermarkets. You want to be sure that the probiotic has the strain: Lactobacillus rhamnosus in it. There are many other strains that are good for the flora of your gut, but rhamnosus is especially good for folks suffering from allergies and eczema.

So why would I have you take something for your gut when it is your nose, eyes, throat that are itching, running, swollen with allergies? Because your gut is the gateway to your immune system. If your gut is compromised…and I will get to why that probably is…it allows too many foreign proteins to pass into your bloodstream. And then your immune system over reacts to those foreign proteins as invaders and then you have an allergic response and then other foreign proteins can easily set off that response.

In allergy therapy we talk about thresholds. We all have a threshold over which we will response to a given antigen/foreign protein. Some folks have a low threshold and are allergic to many many things: pollens, molds, danders, and foods to name the big ones. Some folks have a high threshold and only respond when facing huge numbers, like on a windy pollen day here in Sacramento. Taking a probiotic every day helps to make you less reactive. Taking a probiotic every day fortifies your threshold, making it harder to trigger allergies. Taking a probiotic every day changes the permeability of your gut and prevents foreign proteins from invading.

Why is your gut compromised in the first place? What we eat is compromised with antibiotic laden foods,  too much gluten in American wheat, too many refined and processed foods that are inflammatory to the gut.

First published 25 May 2011