Disclaimer: Any views or advice in this weblog should not be taken as a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment, especially if you know you have a specific health complaint. Prescribed medication should not be stopped or varied without conventional medical advice. Please remember that homeopathic remedies and other health measures should be individually-selected to match the whole person, not just the unwelcome symptom. For chronic, severe or long-standing complaints, or if you are pregnant, elderly or on orthodox medications, seek professional advice rather than self-prescribing.

Climate change worsens hayfever

Allergies like hayfever can be a real pain for patients around this time of year, and we’re certainly seeing plenty of seasonal allergic rhinitis cases in the clinic at the moment. Although grass pollen is the most usual suspect, climate change is thought to be contributing to earlier flowering of plants like cocksfoot and meadow foxtail, and the birch pollen season has been starting earlier, too. Combine this with warmer and wetter summers, and the hayfever season seems to be getting longer and longer, dragging out the misery for sufferers.

Hayfever getting worse

Hayfever is one of the commonest allergies in the UK, affecting about 12 million people. Interestingly, it was virtually unknown before 1800 (the first case was described in 1819, but the cause wasn’t pinpointed until over 50 years later). It’s getting increasingly common, too: in 1965, hayfever affected 10-12% of the population, but by 2003, it was estimated to affect 15-25% of us.

Orthodox treatments

Conventional hayfever medications can have unwanted side effects, like drowsiness, and generally have to be taken regularly in order to get relief from symptoms, which can be a nuisance. These are often the reasons that people ask me for homeopathic help when their hayfever’s bad.

Naturopathic help

Drinking nettle tea (not too often, as it’s a diuretic) helps some people, and nutritional supplements of quercetin and vitamin C can also be of use: recommended products are Biocare’s Quercetin Plus and Histazyme, or Allex.

Nasal douching
Nasal douching (sinus washing) with a neti pot can help to provide relief, too, probably by helping to wash away pollen particles: this might seem like a really weird thing to do, but as long as you do it properly, and use body-temperature water, it really is fine: honest, I’ve tried it, and in fact I felt quite good after, even though I don’t have allergies or sinus problems! If you have a very, very strong stomach and want a chuckle, check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FahpxK73ETw , but be warned, there’s a lot of snot involved, or for a more sedate and palatable introduction, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0lr8JKwIzQ.

Clinical research

The effectiveness of homeopathy in the treatment of hayfever has been supported by published research, including papers in both The Lancet and the British Medical Journal , and this year’s Homeopathy Awareness Week (14-21 June 2008) focuses on homeopathy for allergies.
In a 1986 placebo controlled trial, reported in the Lancet (Lancet 2: 881, 1986), patients given a ‘one-size fits all’ homeopathically-prepared combination of mixed pollens needed half the number of antihistamines than the placebo group.


Remedies to help hayfever symptoms

In my experience, a dose or two of an individually-chosen acute hayfever remedy gives even better results. A homeopath might prescribe Sabadilla (hayfever with paroxysmal sneezing), Allium cepa (hayfever with burning, streaming eyes and a runny, sore nose/top lip, useful for August hayfever), Ambrosia or Euphrasia (both indicated for hayfever with itchy eyes), Arundo or Wyethia (both are remedies for hayfever with an itchy palate), Rosa-d (hayfever with blocked Eustachian tubes, catarrhal deafness or tinnitus) or Linum-u (hayfever with such intense irritation of the mucus membranes that the itching drives the patient nuts), depending on the symptoms. I also prescribe mixed pollens or grasses in diluted form, combination nasal sprays or sublingual drops where necessary.

Remedies to reduce susceptibility to hayfever

Homeopaths also give remedies in the autumn for the underlying tendency to have hayfever. These are aimed at desensitising patients in time for the following year’s season: this is a vital second stage when working with hayfever patients, and in my experience can really reduce symptoms in later years, so when the season’s over, the hayfever work in the clinic isn’t done.

For more information about homeopathy and natural approaches to healthcare, visit www.phoenixhomeopathy.com and for information about nasal douching, visit www.holistic2go.com