Milk

Robert Wood, M.D., senior investigator and director of Allergy & Immunology at Hopkins Children’s commented “We now have evidence from other studies that some children once successfully treated remain allergy-free even without daily exposure, while in others the allergies return once they stop regular daily exposure to milk. This may mean that some patients are truly cured of their allergy, while in others the immune system adapts to regular daily exposure to milk and may, in fact, need the exposure to continue to tolerate it.”

For more details on the study visit this link.

Source: http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/

“Bees produce honey by using pollen. Local raw honey will provide very small doses of this pollen stimulating your bodies tolerance of the pollen. Raw honey from local sources is most effective because it doesn’t have heat applied to it and it is made from the pollen prevalent in your area. Raw honey should not be consumed by children under the age of 5. 

Pineapple is another food treatment for allergies.  Pineapple, and other fruits or berries loaded with quercetin, will reduce the release of histamines.”

I mentioned quercetin previously but forgot to include Pineapple. Pineapple is a proteolytic enzyme bromelain, known to break down protein and is also full of Vitamin C, manganese, and Vitamin B1. Be careful when giving pineapple to your child for the first time, this fruit is known to cause allergic reactions, especially eczema.

Asthma is a lung disease of either allergic origin or genetic that causes tightening of the bronchial tubes making breathing difficult or impossible. It can begin in early childhood or any time after that. In my case my son was the one that suffered severely with unpredicted asthma attacks.The worst nights I had were the ones in which I had to play the guessing game. Guess wether my son is wheezing bad enough to rush him to the ER. And how can anyone ever tell when a young child is struggling to breathe? Yes, there are obvious signs like the rib cage showing, coughing and wheezing. But, before it escalates to the wheezing part it is so difficult to determine that your child is getting worse, especially if it’s night time and it starts with an innocent cough. This is a parent’s worst nightmare! Later you realize that you lost control of the situation and that the albuterol/xopenex are not clearing up the air way. The only choice you are left with is to rush your kid to the ER. And what ever happened to all of those preventative drugs that were prescribed to prevent an episode like this? They never did, at some point my son was taking the largest amount for his weight. I found myself back in the ER on a monthly basis hoping for his breathing to stabilize and watching how many drugs it took to open up the airway. This nerve-wrecking experience is not easy to digest. I finally got fed up with the “best” doctors in South Florida which had the same plan: to increase the dose of steroid based drugs. This was not a solution I wanted to pursue. I broke away from what everyone had to tell me and what supposedly was the right thing to do. Gradually I decreased the dosage of his prescriptions (still under doctor’s supervision) and at the same time I altered my son’s diet and made some changes around the house. Voila! Now he is asthma free!

I’m hoping that everyone at this point is aware that allergic kids have a higher chance of developing asthma, because asthma after all is a disorder of allergic origin. It is important that all the allergens are removed till the child is able to tolerate them. Those allergens are both environmental and food related. Aside from detecting the cause of asthma it’s useful to observe the pattern in which your child has asthma attacks. For example the pattern that I detected in my son was that he would flare up with eczema prior to each of his asthma episodes and before he got bronchitis. “Fifty to 70 percent of children with eczema develop asthma, according to Raphael Kopan, professor of developmental biology and dermatology at Washington University.”http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7015192420#ixzz0HaBH5lRM&D

Every child might have a different pattern, it could be also a sudden asthma attack without predictions, that is when the child is fed a typical asthma causing food such as milk. Below is a list of both environmental and food allergens that cause asthma:

Citrus Fruit (lemons, limes, tangerines, grapefruit, oranges, tomatoes), Eggs, Fish, Food Additives, Food Coloring, Medications, Milk, Peanuts, Shellfish, Soy, Tree Nuts, Wheat.

Air Pollution, Animal Dander, Cockroach, Cold Air, Dust, Dust Mites, Feathers, Fumes, Mold, Perfume (scented air), Pet Saliva, Pollen, Smoke, Tobacco Smoke, Weather Changes.

Emotions (anger, fear, stress), Exercise, Viral Infections (cold, flu).

Food allergens are controllable and easily eliminated with the “Elimination Diet.” The environment is a bit complicated. If you have to deal with cold weather, avoiding the outdoors is not an option. When you take your child outside dress her well and make her wear a huge scarf that will cover the mouth and nose to protect from the cold air reaching the lungs. Tell your child if she’s old enough to breathe through the nose only. The nose serves as a converter of really cold air into warmer air. During spring or pollen season you can get your child started on nettle tea. Yes, the wonders of nettle, works like magic. It’s the easiest way for the body to absorb vitamins, and nettle is rich in vitamins A, C and E, calcium, iron, phosphates and minerals. Nettle has been utilized to treat anemia, kidney diseases and as you already know — allergies. You can begin giving your child half a cup for a few weeks and then work up to two cups a day and then three. It’s safe to give nettle to children, as far as I know there are no known warnings or side effects. 

To get rid of dust and dust mites buy a special hypoallergenic mattress and pillow covers. Also watch out for feathers! Some kids have severe allergies to feathers and will end up wheezing if they are continuously exposed to them. I also use duck tape to tape around on top of the zipper of the hypoallergenic mattress cover just to make sure that the dust mites don’t get in. Washing bedding and all covers weekly is highly recommended in non-scented, dye-free and preferably organic detergent. Keep your house dust free and clean only with fume free, dye free, fragrance free, hypo-allergenic and non-toxic cleaning products. Regular or non-organic cleaning products are known to cause cancer in children and suppress the immune system.  Get rid of all rugs, stuffed animals, decorative pillows (unless you wash them weekly or have a dust mite cover). Steam cleaning the rugs won’t help much because dust mites hide all the way underneath the rug. Also steam cleaning companies utilize chemicals, which will only worsen the situation. 

Aside from drinking nettle tea, I usually add honeybee pollen in the tea (half a teaspoon for each cup of tea). My son doesn’t taste it since I sweeten the tea with raw honey or sometimes raw sugar. The honey helps get rid of the mucus, sometimes your child will throw up when too much mucus is accumulated. This is usually a good sign (that is if the yucky throw up consists of mucus). If you got to the point that your child is coughing, lift her up and tap her upper back gently with your hand to help break up the mucus. Give her lot’s of fluids and make sure she sleeps on double pillows (in an elevated position). You can also try giving her some Shuan Huang Lian (a chinese herb), look up or ask a practitioner the amount appropriate for your child’s weight. This herb is super powerful in treating asthma and has been utilized for centuries in China. 

About vitamins and supplements, I would recommend vitamins, but most vitamins are made with chemicals and our bodies do not even absorb half, instead juicing and raw vegetables are much easier to digest and most vitamins and minerals will be successfully absorbed. Then last but not least the yuckiest remedy of all — apple cider vinegar. Dilute half a teaspoon or less with a glass of water and give to your child after a meal or right before bedtime. The apple cider vinegar breaks down the fat in the body and overall does miracles to the body (read more about it here http://www.earthclinic.com/Remedies/acvinegar.html)

Super Allergy Girl

Option A: Prescription or over the counter drugs. This option was a nightmare and did not help my son in the long run. Some prescriptions altered his behavior and made him aggressive. The worst drugs are the ones that are steroid based. Don’t get your hopes up about your child outgrowing the allergies if you are using these. After all, what you are doing with these steroid based drugs is suppressing the immune system, thus declining the chances of your child growing out of allergies. Also did you know that all the puffs and pills or which ever prescriptions are designed to keep the airway open, actually increase upper respiratory infections and many other side effects. These prescriptions will send your child back to the doctor in no time. If you can talk to your allergist about decreasing the dose until you can completely eliminate it, do it as soon as possible and you will save her immune system. Once you do that consider option C.

Option B: N.A.E.T It sounds very promising for adults, but can you picture your child, especially if she between the age of one and three years old, being still for 15 minutes and at the same time holding a vial and allowing a stranger (practitioner) massage her? What  a rip off that was for my son! I should of taken a vacation with that money. If you happen to have an older child that is at least over four years old, by all means try out the N.A.E.T. program, it might change your life. But don’t even think for one second that a younger child will behave for that amount of time, especially if she is hyper active like my little one. I think the practitioner hid her glasses and meditation balls, which occasionally flew across the room, when it was our turn.

Option C: Relates to nutrition and the three steps I listed in this post. You can begin with the “Elimination Diet.” Yes, the famous diet that everyone writes a book about and then sells it. If you bought it, have you read the title of the book before buying? It gives the content away! So, hmmm…why did you buy it? Just think how simple this is, all you have to do is eliminate the allergens that are causing your child to react. The book is not monitoring your child, you are. You are the only person that can detect via close observation what needs to be eliminated from your child’s diet. You are the only person that can define those harmful allergens. So pull out your diary and write down daily what your child consumes, include everything even how the food is prepared.

Now that you have reviewed all options, if you end up picking Option C you’re on the right path, this is the perfect start to cure allergies!  Keep reading my posts for detailed information on the elimination diet.