Allergies can be very complicated for your health and wellbeing. On the one hand, it can appear that most are more of a nuisance than a real health threat. When you suffer only with symptoms like stuffiness, teary eyes, sneezing, and a runny nose, they are definitely terribly inconvenient but hardly life-threatening or something worth really worrying about. On other hand, food allergies, to peanuts, for example, can be deadly.
The problem is that allergies can also be a signifier of serious long-term conditions such as a poorly functioning immune system or even digestive problems. This can mean that there’s actually no such thing as “just an allergy.” Every system of the body is interconnected, and allergic flare-ups indicate an inflammatory imbalance somewhere that needs to be addressed.
In American alone, more than 50 million people suffer from allergies, and the problem is only getting worse. All too often, allergy patients and their medical professionals address the condition by not addressing it at all. In other word they are prone to ignoring the root causes while masking the symptoms. This conventional approach will rely on suppressing your allergic reactions, and this can actually have the effect of making them worse in the long run. Typical medications range from Claritin to ease a stuffy head to an EpiPen self-injection to control more serious reactions.
While treating your symptoms is not a necessarily a bad thing, and can make things far more comfortable for you in the short term, it can also serve distract us from the bigger picture. In integrative medicine, we strategically address root causes, while at the same time working to alleviate uncomfortable symptoms and boost overall health.