Using Acupuncture And Chinese Herbs to Treat Allergy Symptoms

During certain seasons and locations many individuals tend to suffer from inner nose mucus membrane inflammation and allergic rhinitis. Hay fever can be easily triggered in certain places in almost any time.

Allergic rhinitis usually surpasses the limits of nasal inflammation and severe sneezing as it also affects the eyes and may even affect the entire nervous system while at the same time causing fever-like symptoms. This condition usually causes severe symptoms.

Across the counter as well as prescribed allergy drugs are the most common Western ways to treat allergy. These products, however, come with side effects making one feel groggy, and dry, and worse, what they do is merely mask the symptoms. Western medicine has no answer to the underlying reason of why the immune system rejects a normally benign pollen with symptoms and chronic inflammation.

Many allergy sufferers dissatisfied with allergy drugs are turning to alternative and natural modes of treatment for their problem. Oftentimes, herbal therapy and Chinese medicine are used to resolve the allergy symptoms as well as their underlying cause.

Acupuncture and other forms of TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) are used to offset the symptoms and cause of both perennial and seasonal allergy.

One medical case of note showing how acupuncture works in curing allergy effectively was about a woman who had severe allergy reactions. She described how the reactions in her eyes were “ripping her eyes out.” When she tried acupuncture, her symptoms were dramatically reduced. After several more sessions, she never suffered any more allergic reactions again.

This is just one anecdotal evidence as to what acupuncture can do for people suffering from severe allergy reactions. However, there have been clinical studies that also prove the viability of using acupuncture in the treatment of allergy in Bellingham.

One such study was done in Berlin, Germany in 2008. It was about observing the effectiveness of acupuncture in treating allergic rhinitis. The study utilized a randomized trial method on 981 participating patients all suffering from allergic rhinitis and who still were taking their conventional modes of treatment during the study. The control group consisted of 494 patients while the rest (487) were administered acupuncture treatment. The group treated with acupuncture was given a total of 15 treatments. Three months later at the end of the study, the group given acupuncture treatment had a RQLQ (Rhinitis Quality of Life Questionnaire) three times higher than that of the control group. After the six-month follow up treatment, the scores showed slightly less disparity between the two groups.

Another randomized trial study which was part of a larger epidemiological study involving a much larger group of patients with allergic rhinitis was done and the results were the same as the aforementioned study above.

In these two studies, it was safe to conclude that patients suffering from allergic rhinitis treated with acupuncture combined with conventional treatment resulted in persistent and relevant clinical benefits.

How allergic rhinitis is resolved with acupuncture treatment

In TCM, there isn’t any mystery in the way the body sometimes negatively reacts to ordinary benign elements. TCM practitioners treat the root cause as well as the symptoms with herbs, acupuncture, and diet therapy. Apart from explaining a condition based on the underlying principles chi or Qi energies, TCM practitioners also ascribe a condition to esoteric factors such as dampness and wind (in the case of allergic rhinitis).

They may also see the deficiencies in chi as being associated with dysfunctions in certain different organs of the body. In the case of allergies, spleen and lung chi deficiencies are the most typical. Complementing acupuncture is Chinese herbal medicine that augments the potency of the treatment.

The technique known as Nambudripad’s Allergy Elimination Technique (NAET) developed by Dr. Devi Nambudripad is one of the most recent and most effective ways of treating allergy today. The NAET reprograms the body to make the allergens more acceptable to the body and not alert the immune system which leads to the allergy symptoms. The benefits of this type of treatment last for a long time which is the best thing next to a complete cure of allergy.