Summer Allergy Tips
Are you one of the 19 million adults in the United States who experience allergies?
Are allergies slowing you down? Let's discuss the benefits of Magnesium Soak, Butterbur, and Stinging Nettle in managing allergies. Learn how these remedies work and the importance of building a relationship with them. No cure, but they make allergies more manageable. Take action before allergy season hits!
Chapter 1 Magnesium
Are you tired of reaching for your tissues because of allergies? They’ve slowed you down, made you sleep more, and you wake up exhausted? Let’s talk about some solutions.
Magnesium, Butterbur, and Stinging Nettle. Let’s start with Magnesium Soak. Magnesium reduces your histamine reaction when there is an exposure to something that you’ve been known to have created allergies in the past. So when we’re at cell saturation of 6.3 or above on our Magnesium RBC Red Blood Cell Test, we are adding a fundamental layer for our body not to overreact to the allergies. Does it cure allergies entirely? No, but it makes it more manageable. The higher your histamine levels, the more reactive you are to the pollens in the year.
Chapter 2 Butterbur
Let’s take a moment to talk about how Butterbur ends up and the relationship that you need to form when using an herbal remedy. You need to find which one works for you. Now, over the years, I’ve seen Butterbur and stinging nettle work the best.
I take both of them, but Stinging Nettle and Butterbur work similarly but differently at the same time. Butterbur is in the family of ragweed. It can actually grow. They create more of a histamine response, aggravating your allergies. You need to find a solution that works for your body on herbal remedies. You need to build up 30 to 60 days before you know that your allergy season is here. I start I have set an alert on my phone 60 days before the Pollen season hits wherever I’m living that I am adding stinging nettle and butterbur to help reduce the side effects that Pollen has caused me in the past. Finding out which one works for you or if the combination works more efficiently is important. But don’t feel like because we’re already in allergy season at the timing and recording of this post, don’t feel like you can’t start until next year because we’re already in the thick. Recognize, though, that if you’re taking butterbur, which has been shown in clinical studies to reduce symptoms as effectively as an antihistamine, if it doesn’t work for you, it could be that ragweed is the reason why, and then you turn to stinging nettle. Building a relationship with both of these is important to understanding how they work with your body.
Chapter 3 Stinging Nettle
Stinging Nettle reduces the histamine response, and it works most effectively when taken for 60 days before pollen season sets in. You can take it, though, if you’ve had a reaction to the pollen. If you’re itching, sneezing, scratching, your ears dripping, or your nose dripping—all of those things are happening—you can take it to help reduce and mitigate those immediate effects. It does work most effectively, though, when started 30 to 60 days before the pollen onslaught. Stinging nettle works more effectively when it’s a freeze-dried stick. So when you’re out shopping, look for freeze-dried to get maximum benefit and then take it according to the packaging of what you’ve purchased. Let’s move on to Butterbur. Butterbur is the one that has clinical studies behind it that it is as effective as a histamine. Anti-histamine. And it works as a natural antihistamine. I have seen people, my own father being one of them, that when he took Butterbur because his ragweed irritation was so high, it aggravated his allergies. I can. Now I have the same ragweed, but not as bad as my dad’s. And even though I do have a ragweed allergy, I can still benefit from Butterbur in smaller doses. I could go higher, but that medium dose is a good fit for me. How did I find that out? Simply by trying one thing at a time, documenting the benefits and the downsides, and then moving forward. It’s really about building a relationship with these two items, making sure you’re at cell saturation with magnesium, and then building the relationship. And I realized I do better with both of them. I started 60 days before the pollen season kicked in, where I’m living right now currently, and I’ve got a couple of other layers that I do, but that’s the best fit for me. So, playing with it, finding out which one works for you and at what dosage, is incredibly important for staying on top of that histamine response when there’s excess pollen in the air. I want to share another thing that I've done that has been incredibly beneficial. I was that kid who walked around with the little breathing mask and had to have allergy shots all the time.
Chapter 4 Personal Tips
I was raised in the central California area, where so many things are grown. The area has a very high pollen count, and I had allergies as a kid. And so, to say that I don’t experience seasonal allergies is still pretty exciting for me. One of the things my mom learned from my allergy doctor is that every night during pollen season, I take a quick bath to get all the pollen off of my body before I go to bed. That one thing doesn’t cost you anything, and it can make an incredible difference. When I do that consistently, especially if I’m outside gardening, I’ve been driving with the top down on my car, and I’m just, you know, I’ve got pollen all over me; if I go to bed, then I’m sleeping in that pollen all night, and it’s aggravating my histamine response. I always take just a quick bath in the summertime to get that pollen off of me. The other thing my mom had me do as a little girl, and I still do now because I’ve shown that it’s beneficial for my body, is changing my pillowcase every night. I don’t lay down on the pillowcase that may have pollen from the previous day. But that’s a lot of pillowcases. Here’s what my mom taught me as a little girl that I still do now. One pillowcase can get me through four nights. So the top of the pillowcase, the next night, I flip the pillowcase over. The next night, I take the pillowcase off and put it on inside out, and I still have another topside and downside. This works for me during mild pollen season, but if it’s a high, I actually will use a new pillowcase every night. And did you remember that hydration? The stickier your body is from dehydration, the more easily pollen will aggravate your system, leaving you with that scratchy throat, runny nose, itchy ears, and just feeling so lethargic and tired. I love that I can do things that are within my control to reduce how my body reacts to pollen. It all starts with keeping my Magnesium RBC Red Blood Cell level at 6.3 or above. For me, that’s not the only layer. I need more layers on top of that. Butterbur, stinging nettle, changing my sheets more often, and switching out my pillowcases have all played a huge role in not experiencing those symptoms from seasonal allergies.
Now, I want to know what you’re going to do to help reduce your seasonal allergies so you can get back out there and do the things you want to do in the summer.
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