Allergy Treatment and Desensitization
Allergies are not some random, incurable curse or a lifelong side effect of not being raised on a farm or with exposure to a dog. There are different types of allergies and there are distinct causes of and effective treatments for each type.
IgE mediated allergies
This is what we generally think of when we hear the term, "allergy". "IgE" (pronounced as just the letters: eye-gee-ee) refers to a chemical (longer name: immunoglobulin E) that your body produces when exposed to things it is reactive to, and this chemical triggers a chain of events, including histamine release, that looks like hives, swollen airways, watery eyes, the sniffles, etc., possibly as far as anaphylactic shock, an often fatal scenario, most commonly associated with allergies to bee stings, shellfish, peanuts, etc. Lesser, usually non-fatal forms of IgE allergies are to dust, cats, pollen, etc.
While there are specific individual reasons that someone might have these allergies, there are a few big categories that almost everyone falls into. I'll touch on just one here; though there are others, which is where things like DAO and quercetin come in.
Low baseline histamine
Everyone associates these allergies with high histamine, but that's not really how it works! Allergic symptoms, as described above, don't occur once you've reached a certain high level of histamine; they happen when there is a big enough jump from the baseline, typical-for-that-person amount of histamine, running through their body on a daily basis, to a higher amount, triggered by a potential allergen. The problem is not elevated histamine. It's that the baseline histamine—because we all always have some amount of histamine running through our bodies, it's an important chemical that has other uses than making us uncomfortable—is too low, so when we do have a histamine release, the difference between normal and the reactive release is huge, instead of minor, and symptoms occur.
So why do people have low histamine?
It's almost always a nutrient deficiency, and here's one point where individuals vary. To produce and maintain normal levels of the right kinds of histamine, you have to have enough vitamin C, magnesium, B1, B5, B6, B12, folate, and copper to run those chemical pathways/that histamine factory, and in addition to that, you need to be able to transform those nutrients effectively into the form that the body needs them to be in, in order to use them. All of these nutrients are common deficiencies in different populations, depending on diet and a number of other factors, and one of them, magnesium, is common today in nearly everyone, because of poor agricultural practices (no appropriate crop rotation, compost application, etc.) and depletion of magnesium in the soil. In any case, for any given person, what are the odds that all of those are on point?
Sometimes, high dose nutrient therapy (IV or liposomal work most quickly) can arrest environmental/seasonal allergic symptoms almost instantly. In other cases, more needs to be done. In all cases, it's best to assess and fix why the patient was deficient in the first place.
Deeper causes
There is the hypothesis, and while it's peculiar, clinically, I have often seen it play out as true, that allergic responses occur because of a confusion within the body, where it has associated an emotional trauma with a physical stimulus, even though the two are unrelated.
A simplistic example is this: let's imagine a person with allergies to cats. As a child, they had a pet cat, and cat dander was something that their immune system interacted with on a daily basis, because it was present, but the system was not, at that time, overreactive to it. Imagine one day, the child is petting their cat on the chair next to them, and the parents come in and say, "I'm sorry to tell you this, honey, but we're getting a divorce."
The body associates this emotional trauma with the cat and ever after, reacts to it in a panicked fashion, as if cat dander were the source of that pain. When the emotional cause is found and resolved via a therapy that truly roots out the issue and lays it to rest (for comparison, there are many therapies that just teach a person to manage an issue or be intellectually comfortable with it, instead of fully addressing it), then the body can, and often does, cease its reactivity to that object.
IgG and IgA mediated allergies
There are other immunoglobulin reactions that trigger uncomfortable immune responses that don't have anything to do with IgE, but with IgG and IgA instead. Some more conventional folks don't honor this idea, because it isn't something that was recognized and taught in their medical training; even today, it can be overlooked in schools. Newer research shows though, that limiting the concept of allergic response to just IgE mediated responses is outdated. For example, someone can have a clear, symptomatic reaction (not usually the same as IgE mediated, but things like brain fog, fatigue, muscle and joint pain, etc.) to certain foods or chemicals, but show up as negative on conventional allergy tests that look for an IgE response. The tests are negative because they are looking for the wrong thing, not because a person isn't actually having a reaction. Cyrex Labs is the only lab I'm aware of testing for IgG and IgA responses in individuals to foods and even against their own tissues, shedding very important light on autoimmune conditions.
A stranger form of allergy
There is another form of sensitivity than may not be related to immunoglobulins, but can have just as significant of an effect. This type of allergy can be to anything: even substances that the body requires for survival, like basic nutrients. A person will never have IgE reactions to things this basic—no one could develop as a viable human embryo with an allergy to iron, or water, or B12. Extreme reactivity to those is not compatible with life.
A person can live with this other type of allergy, because the reactivity is not as extreme, but they will be limited and life will be problematic. One example is that a person can show all the signs of magnesium deficiency (muscle tension/cramping, insomnia, low energy/easy fatigue, migraines, poor tolerance of chemicals, histaminic responses, etc.) and have low RBC magnesium (a good, basic blood test to assess whether the body has adequate levels), but their intestinal absorption of nutrients is good, they have good levels of taurine (an amino acid needed for the body to put and keep the magnesium where it's supposed to be), and, aware of the issue, they've been taking magnesium, in varied bioavailable forms, topically, internally, injected, etc. for a long time, without any relief of the issue, or with maybe some minor relief, but the moment they stop, the issue is back in full force.
Sometimes, what's happening, is that the body is not allergic to the magnesium itself, but it is allergic to it when it's in reaction with acid (like stomach acid or lactic acid released by muscles), say, or a basic solution (like the bicarbonate that the pancreas releases to counter the stomach acid once food reaches the intestines, or that exists in the blood normally), or other natural components of the body. This more minor allergic reactivity causes the body to reject the nutrient at some level. It will keep/maintain enough for basic survival, but not enough for optimal functioning.
These allergies can also be to people (your dad? your ex?), or even traumatic events or places where those events occurred.
... what?
Yeah, this is outside of what biological science understands and can place a chemical mechanism onto. Still, it's only 2017, at the time of this writing, and there's a lot we don't know. When a patient has done the appropriate treatment for this type of allergy and 1) the symptoms of the deficiency go away, 2) the bloodwork normalizes for the first time in the patient's history, and 3) they don't need to take that supplement any more, because they are able to absorb all of that nutrient from their food/natural sources, despite a lack of chemical understanding, that's convincing and worth doing.
There are different ways, generally called "allergy desensitization", to treat this type of allergy. At this clinic, we use ART-Desensitization (ART-D), which is a process similar to NAET, but with some significant differences, including the use of ART (Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt's Autonomic Response Testing) to fully identify allergies (for example, sometimes a milk allergy is not to dairy or casein, but to calcium reacting with digestive fluids) and all the associated causes, whether they are chemical, mental, emotional, or other, and then to individualize the treatment so that it is directed precisely at the patient's individual needs.
Following treatment, the patient often needs to take a high dose of the previously selected nutrient for a short time (usually a few days), and then, they may never need to supplement that nutrient again. It is an absolute pleasure to get people off supplements that they've been on for years, and to see those labs pop up, freeing up their time, energy, and finances for other things.
The material above is not meant to be taken as medical advice, nor is the information here complete enough by itself to make accurate or wise treatment decisions. Please talk with an appropriately trained healthcare provider before supplementing specific or high dose nutrients at home.