Allergic retraction

Ruth Sergeant used to pop over-the-counter allergy pills as if they were lemon drops. “Gosh, I was going through boxes of it,” says Sergeant, a 54-year-old Chewelah resident. “In a season, I was using like six boxes or better. It helped, but it was miserable.”

There had to be a better way to treat the sneezing, coughing and aching sinuses brought on by pollens and grasses, she thought.

And so two years ago, she started seeing Randy Sandaine, a naturopathic physician in Colville. Naturopaths use a variety of methods to not only treat, but to find the root cause of ailments.

Even in this bad allergy year, Sergeant says she feels about 85 percent better than before she started seeing Sandaine. She can go outside whenever she wants and doesn’t have to worry about avoiding allergens, she says.

“I feel so much better,” she says. “I don’t have the problems I did. I’m not miserable all the time. I don’t have the headaches.”

Sergeant is certainly in good company with her sneezing, wheezing and stuffy-headedness this time of year. More than 35 million Americans suffer from seasonal allergies, according to the American Academy of Allergy Asthma and Immunology.

And this allergy season has been a doozy in the Inland Northwest.

“This has been a particularly bad year,” says Joanne Hillary, a Spokane naturopath. “It’s been a record year for pollen because of the early hot weather in February. … Everybody’s been miserable this year.”

Many allergy sufferers find relief from over-the-counter or prescription drugs. And others are able to end their misery with allergy shots.

But, as interest in alternative therapies grows, some people are seeking to avoid Western medicine’s allergy treatments. Instead, they’re turning to herbal supplements, homeopathic remedies, dietary changes, acupressure, laser therapies and other methods to not only ease their symptoms but to eliminate their allergies altogether.

“We like to focus on solving the problem rather than just palliation,” says Hillary. “But we do palliation, too.”

Cleaning up a patient’s diet is the first thing Hillary tries to do. She encourages allergy sufferers to load up on whole, unprocessed foods while avoiding sugars and dairy products.

A poor diet taxes the immune system, Hillary says, forcing it to work harder than it should. This makes us more susceptible to allergens and their anguish-inducing properties.

A week or two of healthy eating generally makes a big difference for most folks, she says.

Sometimes, people have an underlying food allergy that causes the body to overproduce mucous, Hillary says. The mucous traps pollens and other allergens in the body, which makes allergy symptoms worse.

To treat symptoms, Hillary offers patients natural antihistamines, such as bioflavonoids.

“They’re not going to be like Claritin,” she says. “They’re not going to shut things down in 10 minutes.” But, she adds, they do work, and they are a good choice for people wanting to avoid the side effects of pharmaceuticals.

Sandaine uses Muscle-Response Testing to figure out which allergens are the most bothersome.

“The whole concept sounds pretty strange,” he admits. “It rearranges information in the nervous system so the body quits reacting to those things.”

Acupressure is then used to rid the body of its allergic reactions, Sandaine says.

“When we eliminate the allergy, it’s no longer present,” he says. “Now they don’t have a need for treating themselves, even with a natural product.”

Michael Whitney, a Spokane naturopath, treats his allergy patients with a cold laser (also known as a low-energy laser). Patients hold onto a glass vial filled with an allergen while the laser stimulates various acupressure points.

“Because allergy is an overreactive immune system, generally you try to find the cause of what is making their immune system overreactive,” Whitney says.

He also prescribes homeopathic remedies, but says he sees few problems with over-the-counter or prescription drugs when flare-ups strike.

Cheney resident RenneD Ditton started seeing Whitney last fall, looking for relief from hay fever.

“I have always believed in natural medicine as the first choice of medical treatment, although I do believe Western medicine has its place,” Ditton says.

Ditton worried what kind of effects allergy shots would have had on her system.

“I just know the way my body is wired, I would’ve been very ill,” she says.

But after nearly a year of naturopathic treatments, Ditton says she is now “completely cured.”

“I feel so much better,” she says. “I know that I can go outside and I don’t have to worry about what the weather’s doing.”

Not surprisingly, allergists aren’t entirely sold on these natural remedies.

“Part of that is that by the time a person sees a board-certified allergist, they’ve usually tried a lot of stuff,” says Dr. Steven Kernerman, an allergist with the Spokane Allergy and Asthma Clinic. “They’ve usually tried a lot of the herbal things. There are probably some people that might respond and some people that don’t respond.”

Kernerman first suggests that people avoid things that exacerbate their allergies.

“If someone’s allergic to grass pollen, they don’t necessarily want to be the one assigned the chore to mow the lawn,” he says.

Take walks in the evening, rather than in the early morning, to avoid high pollen times. Shower before bed to wash away any allergy-causers, and change the sheets often, he says.

If those tricks don’t work, Kernerman suggests over-the-counter or prescription antihistamines, decongestants, anti-inflammatory nasal sprays and, as a last resort, allergy shots.

And if you do decide to take herbal remedies or other supplements, be sure to tell your doctor to make sure they do not interact with medications, he says.

“Herbal doesn’t necessarily equal safe,” Kernerman says. “I consider an herbal remedy a medicine of sorts. I don’t underestimate whatever sort of positive or negative effects might occur.”

As for natural allergy-relievers, Kernerman says he remains on the lookout.

“If I knew of something that was inexpensive and very safe and very well-tolerated, I would be the first person signing up for it,” he says. “Truly that would be wonderful. … I haven’t come across the holy grail of herbals for allergies. I’m still trying to learn what that might be.”

Christie Hakola, a 56-year-old Colville resident, thought the treatments offered by Sandaine were “like hocus-pocus,” she says. Until she tried them.

Hakola suffered for decades from mold allergies that, she says, caused terrible headaches and body aches.

“I’ve been on over-the-counter things,” Hakola says. “I’ve given myself allergy shots.

“I’ve been to allergy doctors in Spokane and at the University of Washington in Seattle. … But nothing really ever helped.”

Since she started seeing Sandaine in the spring of 1998, Hakola says her allergies are about 90 percent better.

“It just kind of gave me a life again,” she says.