My answer to Why is anti allergy medicine not improving?
Answer by Connie b. Dellobuono:
Treatments for allergies include avoiding known allergens.
Other factors that have been linked to allergies include the surrounding environment and lifestyle habits including:
- Exposure to smoke
- Exposure to farm animals and products
- Domestic cats and dogs
- Daycare attendance
- Viral infections
- Vaccinations
- Medications
- Air pollution
- Diet
Allergies are certainly the result of both genetic and environmental factors, but there is fresh evidence to suggest that at least one major genetic aberration could be behind everything from hay fever to food allergies to asthma.
Specific gene variations that alter the encoding of epithelial cell-derived cytokines such as interleukin-33 and thymic stromal lymphopoietin may be involved in the pathogenesis of allergies. Additionally, variations in the ORMDL3 and GSDML genes have been linked to an increased risk of early-onset asthma.
Dr Mercola wrote:
Eliminating chronic stress and inflammatory foods like grains and processed foods and introducing healthier foods, including fermented foods, that will support a proper balance of bacteria in your gut.
Eating a wholesome diet based on unprocessed, ideally organic and/or locally grown foods, including fermented foods, along with optimizing your vitamin D levels and correcting your omega-3 to omega-6 ratio, will form the foundation upon which your immune system can function in an optimal manner.
Interestingly, while we’re on the topic of diet, if you have tree pollen allergies, you should avoid avocados when the trees are pollinating to avoid exacerbating your symptoms. In the Huffington Post, Mike Tringale, senior vice president of External Affairs for the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA), further explained the importance of a healthy lifestyle for fighting allergies:
“An allergic disorder means you have a chronic disease of your immune system … Exercise can bolster your immune system, which means it can be a helpful strategy when you’re fighting your allergies. Immunotherapy [like allergy shots] increase your tolerance to a trigger, but your body will still produce antibodies to those allergens.”
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From Wiki:
Several medications may be used to block the action of allergic mediators, or to prevent activation of cells and degranulation processes. These include antihistamines, glucocorticoids, epinephrine (adrenaline), mast cell stabilizers, and antileukotriene agents are common treatments of allergic diseases.
Anti-cholinergics, decongestants, and other compounds thought to impair eosinophil chemotaxis, are also commonly used. Though rare, the severity of anaphylaxis often requires epinephrine injection, and where medical care is unavailable, a device known as an epinephrine autoinjector may be used.
The allergic diseases—hay fever and asthma—have increased in the Western world over the past 2–3 decades.
Increases in allergic asthma and other atopic disorders in industrialized nations, it is estimated, began in the 1960s and 1970s, with further increases occurring during the 1980s and 1990s,
Although some suggest that a steady rise in sensitization has been occurring since the 1920s.
The number of new cases per year of atopy in developing countries has, in general, remained much lower.