Read The Everything Guide to Herbal Remedies Online
Authors: Martha Schindler Connors
The Everything Guide to Herbal Remedies (18 page)
- Allergens, such as pollen or mold
- Irritants, such as certain fabrics, soaps, chlorine, or cigarette smoke
- Certain foods, especially eggs, peanuts, and milk
- Other factors, like stress, high temperatures, and low humidity
According to the National Institutes of Health, roughly 2.5 percent of Americans under the age of sixty-five have atopic dermatitis. But this relatively rare condition costs between roughly $600 and $1,250 per patient, per year—representing more than a quarter of the average patient’s health care costs. All that adds up to more than $1 billion annually.
Urticaria is a fancy name for hives, a condition that affects about 20 percent of the population at one time or another. Most often, urticaria appears suddenly and disappears a few hours later. In some people, however, the hives stick around much longer, or go away only to reappear a short time later. The most common triggers for urticaria are certain medications, foods, and insect bites.
If your skin encounters an allergen, you might develop contact dermatitis, in which the affected skin turns red and itchy (as it would after touching poison ivy). Experts have identified more than 3,000 allergens that can cause allergic contact dermatitis. They include: OTC antibiotic creams and ointments, fragrances in many skin and hair care products (even products labeled “unscented” can contain fragrance), and metals such as the nickel in jewelry and the mercury in dental fillings.
Occasionally, a substance won’t cause an allergic response unless it’s triggered by something else, such as sunlight (these reactions are called
photoallergies).
This can be the case with skin preparations and some medications. Other people will react to an allergen only after they begin to perspire.
Conventional medicine generally treats allergic skin reactions with pharmaceuticals designed to stop the symptoms, if not the reaction itself.
These include:
- Topical antihistamines and corticosteroids, which control itching and swelling
- Topical immunomodulating drugs to reduce the immune system’s response
- Oral or topical antibiotics to treat infection in inflamed skin
- Oral or injectable corticosteroids
- Oral immunomodulators
Each of these drugs has potential side effects. The last two, which are generally reserved for cases that haven’t responded to the other drugs, can cause serious problems, including hypertension and kidney problems. Herbal medicine has some effective alternatives:
| • Astragalus (Astragalus membranaceus) | Astragalus is used in traditional Eastern medicine to treat all sorts of allergic diseases. In the lab, it’s been shown to suppress atopic dermatitis. |
| • Hops (Humulus lupulus) | Native Americans used this herb as a multipurpose skin remedy. New research shows that drinking a hop extract can inhibit all sorts of allergic reactions, including atopic dermatitis. |
| • Oats (Avena sativa) | Used in baths and skin care treatments, oatmeal relieves itching and inflammation and creates a barrier to help skin heal. |
| • Saint John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum) | Saint John’s wort is a traditional remedy for many skin problems. Used topically, it inhibits inflammation-building enzymes to relieve atopic dermatitis. |
| • Tea (Camellia sinensis) | Tea contains phytochemicals that have been proven effective at suppress-ing all types of allergic response, including inflammatory skin diseases. |
Roughly 12 million Americans have diagnosed food allergies, a condition in which the immune system reacts to the ingestion of a trigger food by creating inflammation in various parts of the body. Food allergies can trigger symptoms in the digestive system as well as the skin and respiratory tract. True food allergies affect about 7 percent of U.S. children and 2 percent of adults. Typical symptoms of food allergy are:
- Swelling and an itchy sensation in mouth and throat
- Abdominal pain (cramping, bloating)
- Diarrhea
- Nausea and vomiting
- Skin rash
- Coughing or shortness of breath
Most often, a food allergy makes you uncomfortable. However, in rare cases, an allergenic food will trigger a potentially life-threatening condition called
anaphylaxis,
which is an immediate reaction that can cause loss of consciousness and death. Every year, about 30,000 people go into anaphylactic shock caused by a food allergy, and 150 people die from it.
Because there’s no cure for food allergies (and no magical antidote that you can take once you’ve eaten something allergenic), the only way to avoid an allergic reaction is to avoid the foods that might cause it. While food allergies are more common in children (and typically disappear as the child grows up), allergies to peanuts, nuts, and seafood seldom go away.
Lots of people who think they have food allergies actually have food intolerances. A true food allergy typically involves a reaction in the skin as well as the digestive system. If you’ve eaten a food to which you’re allergic, symptoms may appear right away—within a few minutes—or may take up to two hours to appear. Food intolerances produce digestive symptoms only.
There are more than 200 foods and food ingredients that can provoke an allergic reaction, but the vast majority are caused by nuts (walnuts, almonds, and pecans), legumes (peanuts and soybeans), milk, eggs, fish, shellfish, and wheat.
It’s fairly easy to avoid allergenic foods—when you can see them. But restaurant meals and manufactured foods often contain potential triggers like milk, soy, and egg whites (which won’t be listed on the label if they’re part of a flavoring or coloring agent). If you’re severely allergic, even a tiny amount can cause a reaction.
If you’ve had an allergic reaction to a food, you can use a few herbal remedies to help relieve the symptoms:
| • Chamomile (Matricaria recutita) | This herb works as an anti-inflammatory and is useful as a tea and a topical remedy. Research shows it can relieve itching triggered by a food allergy just as well as pharmaceutical preparations. |
| • Ginger (Zingiber officinale) | Ginger is a proven stomach-settler that appears to “deactivate” the inflammatory response in laboratory tests. |
| • Peppermint (Mentha x piperita) | Peppermint soothes digestive tissues and appears to have an antihistamine -like effect. Research shows it can be effective against stomach upset (including bloating and mild gastrointestinal spasms), cramping, nausea, and vomiting. |
| • Rooibos (Aspalathus linearis) | Research shows that rooibos works as a bronchodilator and antispasmodic. |
| • Witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) | This is a classic skin remedy that relieves allergic itching and inflammation. |
Asthma is a chronic disease that’s generally divided into two types: allergic (or extrinsic) or nonallergic (intrinsic). Of the two, allergic asthma is the most common, affecting about 60 percent of all asthmatics.
Nonallergic asthma, as the name implies, is not associated with an allergic response. It shares the same symptoms—coughing, wheezing, and difficulty breathing, all caused by inflammation and airway obstruction—but is triggered by things like stress, exercise, and cold or dry air. Thus, it doesn’t involve the immune system.
Allergic asthma, on the other hand, is caused by the same kind of overblown immune response that’s behind allergies. It’s triggered by inhaled allergens, such as dust mites, pet dander, mold, and pollen.
There’s no cure for asthma (either the allergic or nonallergic kind), and treatments focus on managing symptoms and making attacks less frequent and intense. Western medicine prescribes two types of asthma drugs: long-acting control (or preventive) and short-acting (or emergency).
Long-term control medicines make the airways less sensitive and less reactive, and reduce coughing and wheezing. These drugs include:
- Inhaled anti-inflammatories, including nonsteroidals (or mast cell stabilizers) and corticosteroids
- Beta-agonist bronchodilators (inhaled or taken orally), relax the smooth muscle surrounding the bronchial tubes
- Leukotriene modifiers, which act on chemicals that trigger inflammation and mucus production to reduce swelling and keep the airways open
- Injectable anti-IgE therapy, which prevents the IgE antibodies from binding to mast cells and producing an allergic reaction; this is used in people with moderate to severe allergic asthma
Herbs can also prevent allergies and asthma. A recent study found that children who eat lots of tomatoes, eggplants, green beans, and zucchini have much lower rates of asthma. Other studies show that babies born to women who regularly eat vegetables (along with fish and legumes) have fewer allergic conditions.