Health On The Blog

Divine retribution! God must have been punishing me for stealing.

At least, that’s how I felt when, for the umpteenth time, I had snuck over the fence into the neighbor’s yard, and picked a few of his golden-ripe pears off of his tree. I brought them home and sat outside in my yard, and started to eat them.

Before long, my mouth and lips began to itch and burn! I stopped eating the fruit, but too late: before long I was having stomach pain and nausea, and that itching just wouldn’t go away. I got over it, but you can bet that was the last time I ever snuck over that fence.

A few months later, something similar happened. But this time, I was at my brother’s wedding reception, and I wasn’t doing anything wrong: I had taken a nice red apple from the table and started eating it. I experienced those same symptoms again. Then came Thanksgiving, and yum! how I loved to crack and eat the nuts that were set out in large bowls in all the houses… but you can guess what happened when I started to eat them, I suppose?

Within about a year or so, I found that I could not eat apples, pears, nuts, coconut, lettuce, carrots, or just about any kind of raw fruits or veggies. You can imagine how hard that was to explain to my Mom and Dad, who naturally thought this was just a cleverer-than-average excuse not to eat healthy foods. I suppose it was convenient on occasion, but more often than not, this problem was preventing me from eating foods that I actually enjoyed.

I got in the habit of telling people, “I’m sorry I can’t eat that, I’m allergic.” This didn’t cause any problems other than those suspicions of my parents. When I was in high school, I remember the biology teacher doubting my claims of being allergic. She told me plainly that this wasn’t like any food allergies she had ever heard of, and she was sure I was just being a picky eater.

This condition continued to mystify me for several years, and it continued to cause me problems - sometime in surprising ways. For example, I was put on potato-peeling duty in the Army, and I got a terrible rash (hives) from the potato juice splashing on my skin, as well as my first-ever asthma attack from breathing in the fumes!

So what was really going on here? It turns out that my high school teacher was pretty much correct. My problem was indeed caused by allergies - but NOT by food allergies. Food allergies are potentially very serious, even deadly reactions to foods. Most allergy experts say that the foods that people are most commonly allergic to are milk, eggs, wheat, soy, peanuts and tree nuts, and seafood. People with food allergies must avoid the food they are allergic to altogether. For some foods, this means not even touching them or being around people who are eating them. Luckily, true food allergies affect a fairly minor percentage of people: Experts estimate that only 2 percent of adults are truly allergic to certain foods. For those few people, food allergies can extremely dangerous: tiny amounts of peanut, for example, have been known to cause life-threatening reactions and even death in very allergic individuals. I remember seeing something on TV about a high school kid that almost died after kissing a girl who had eaten peanuts.

My problem, it turns out, is something called “Oral Allergy Syndrome.” It is now known that people who suffer pollen-induced seasonal rhinitis, often known as “hayfever,” can suffer cross-reactions to fruits, vegetables, and even certain chemicals and synthetic materials. When I take a bite of a raw apple, somehow my immune system thinks I am trying to swallow birch pollen! Not to get too technical here, but the shape of the protein molecules in that apple are interpreted by my body as being similar enough to the pollen to provoke a weak allergic reaction. I say “weak” meaning in comparison with what happens to people with true food allergies. Certainly when I am suffering from eating an apple slice it doesn’t seem weak or minor to me! I guess I should mention that there have been very rare reported cases of this type of allergic problem causing dangerous reactions like anaphylactic shock, but again that is very rare.

If you already know you have seasonal allergies, and you experience symptoms like those I have been describing, then it is very likely your symptoms are indeed being caused by Oral Allergy Syndrome (”OAS.”) You may have never bothered before to find out exactly which pollens cause your allergy symptoms, but if you have OAS it may finally be worthwhile to do so. There are well-documented lists of which foods and other substances correlate to which pollen allergies, so if you know exactly what pollens you are allergic to, you can predict foods and other materials that are likely to cause you problems. Go to your doctor and ask for an allergy skin test, which is the simplest way to test for common pollen allergies.

Unfortunately, there is no cure for OAS. You may have heard about desensitizing treatments for allergies, and there is some evidence that this helps, but it is a long and complicated and uncomfortable process for most people who try it. Antihistamines can help with the symptoms, the same as they help with your other symptoms. Also, many people find they can eat their favorite foods just slightly cooked (enough to break down the offending proteins,) or even just slightly more or less ripened than usual. In general, however, you will simply need to identify the foods that cross-react with your pollen allergies, and avoid them.

Sam Hodgeman runs a new website reviewing allergy information and products. For more free information and reviews, see www.allergy-reviews.com

Article Source: http://www.abcarticledirectory.co

During my recent visit to a local pharmacy to buy some allergy medicine, I noticed a profound trend while looking at some of the over-the-counter (OTC) products. About half of all the products, on their packaging, were touting that they either contained natural ingredients or used some sort of alternative healing modality.

The use of herbs, vitamin supplements, and homeopathic medicine is growing because of the multitude of side effects associated with conventional care. For the purposes of this discussion, let us take a closer look at each of these different types of natural products and some examples of products in each category.

Herbal medicine has been around longer than any other form of treatment. Ancient man used plants for almost everything, including food, shelter, and even clothing. So, they turned to their botanical resources for treating disease as well. Man developed herbal medicines by observing animals, and then through trial and error, they would assemble random concoctions of various plants until they found the remedy that worked best.

The most popular herbal remedies include echinacea, ginger, and ginkgo biloba. Echinacea is very adept at stimulating the immune system when the patient is suffering from an acute viral or bacterial infection. It is often found in cold remedies. Ginger has been demonstrated to reduce nausea and vomiting (and is used in most hangover cures). Ginkgo biloba helps combat various diseases of the circulatory system, and has also been shown to help treat people suffering from depression and even Alzheimers. Basically, there are a lot of herbs that do help treat certain conditions, but on the whole, herbal remedies do not seem to be as effective as conventional medicines and should only be used as a supplement to conventional treatment if the patient is severely ill.

The next category of natural remedies is the vitamin supplements. Between herbs, vitamins, and homeopathic products, vitamins are probably the least effective form of treatment when dealing with acute illnesses or serious medical conditions. The most popular vitamin supplement on the market today is Airborne, which is currently the number one selling OTC natural cold remedy in the United States.

Airborne is an effervescent tablet that contains a blend of vitamins, minerals, herbs, and amino acids. Following a powerful endorsement on the Oprah Winfrey show, sales of Airborne skyrocketed. Airborne was designed to prevent the common cold. So, it is not a treatment medicine. However, there is no conclusive evidence to suggest that ingesting a bunch of vitamins and minerals can prevent the onset of cold symptoms. In fact, one of the ingredients in Airborne, echinacea, which we touched upon earlier in this article, has been shown to be effective for treating an acute infection, not necessarily for preventing it. Also, Airborne contains 1000 mg of vitamin C, which most experts agree is not safe to take. Daily ingestion of this much vitamin C can lead to a wide variety of medical problems, such as kidney stones and other noxious ailments. Airborne has not undergone an independent study to confirm its effectiveness.

The last, and perhaps most important, category of natural medicine products that we will discuss is homeopathic medicines. Homeopathy is probably the best system of natural medicine, hands down. Simply put, it is a system of medicine that treats disease with tiny amounts of natural substances that mimic the symptoms of the condition being treated. For example, a homeopathic remedy for treating the common cold may contain a diluted concentration of substances that if present in high quantities, would cause you to become congested and develop a sore throat. But, because the medicine contains a highly diluted amount of the substance, it does not actually make you sick; instead, it causes your immune system to activate so that your natural defense mechanisms will kick into high gear and fight off any cold viruses you might have in your body.

Homeopathic products, when formulated properly, do not produce side effects because the ingredients are so diluted within the mixture that no effects are produced from the substances themselves. The ingredients in these brands often have an X or a C after them to indicate how many dilutions were done for each ingredient. Also, treatment with these sorts of products has been demonstrated to actually prevent recurrences of certain diseases over the long-term. Some of the best manufacturers in this category include Boiron, a French manufacturer with annual revenues in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and Liddell, a small American company whose products are sold primarily in health food stores.

So, next time you stop by the pharmacy, take a closer look at the ingredients for the various natural medicines on the shelf. You should try to stay away from vitamin supplements. You might want to try some herbal remedies depending upon your condition, but the homeopathic products are probably the best way to go. Also, you should consult your physician or a pharmacist before buying any medicine that you have never tried before, even if it is sold over-the-counter.

Article Source: ABC Article Directory

The Author: Jim Pretin is the owner of www.forms4free.com, a service that helps programmers make email forms.