Null - No more allergies: a complete guide to preventing, treating, and overcoming allergies

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Copyright 2014 by Gary Null

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

ISBN: 978-1-62873-618-2

Printed in the United States of America

Preface

Environmental medicine is one of the most exciting and important fields in health care today. As an approach to allergy diagnosis, prevention, and treatment, environmental medicine takes into account not only the effects of inhaled substances, such as pollens, chemicals, molds, and animal danders, but also foods, as well as home and work surroundings where we may be exposed to various allergy-causing substances. Recent advances in our knowledge about the environment increase our ability to achieve the best possible health.

The concept of understanding how our bodies interact with our surroundings is not new. It is, however, all too often overlooked. As our daily contacts with foreign substances, allergens, and irritants increase, and as our communities and workplaces continue to expose us to synthetic and dangerous substances, we need to critically examine the effects on our health. It seems to me that the traditional symptom treatment approach to illness is backward. We are taking various prescription medications to improve our symptoms without learning about the cause of illness or learning about our bodies.

Everyone, especially physicians, should first and foremost learn about ourselves, our environment, and the relationship between the two. We need to understand how we are chemically, physically, and emotionally individual and then modify our behavior and tailor treatment accordingly.

We must assess and maximize our nutritional status as well as our physical and emotional well-being. All of this plays an important role in achieving optimal health. Alternate methods of testing for substance sensitivity and an expanded definition of its causes can only add to the information-gathering process of the holistic approach to health care.

Education has always been Gary Nulls passion, and this book enables the layperson to fully understand the effects of allergies, pollution, chemicals, and toxins on our health. The chapters on immune functions, nutrients, and herbs are replete with useful and important information on maintaining proper health. This is not a casual compilation of biased material so often found in traditional or conservative texts and reports. This is a thorough, scientific examination of past and current literature and clinical experience, something rarely offered by educators or physicians.

This book is not only a primer, but also a guide and resource. With the knowledge contained herein, we can keep ourselves healthier and meet the challenges that our environment presents.

Another job well done.

Christopher L. Calapai, DO

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Yong Soo Ha for his very special presence in assisting with many of the recipes, and I appreciate the hundreds of hours of dictation and editing given by Eileen Davis and Lois Zinn.

C ONTENTS

Introduction

There is a revolution of medicine afoot in which some of us are returning to old-fashioned remedies such as herbs, simple minerals, and homeopathic remedies and foods. Allergy sufferers of the world would do well to learn about these therapies. Although modern-day pharmaceuticals are becoming more and more sophisticated, they tend to have side or rebound effects, which will be discussed later. The practitioners of complementary medicine (i.e., those who view treatments as filling out or completing the bodys own systems) coming from many separate fields of specialization share the common philosophy that observing patient responses is more important than relying upon laboratory computer printouts. In the field of allergy, this is a great philosophical advance, although, in a sense, it is a throwback to a less-technological and less-specialized practice of medicine.

Actually, most complementary physicians tend to be generalists who see patients with problems of any organ system. As such, they can save a lot of burdensome traveling from one medical office to another. For instance, for a problem of frequent urination a gynecologist, a urologist, and a psychiatrist could all be involved even though the disorder may be nothing more than an allergic or immune-system process. The same might be true of a patient suffering from joint pains, who would be traditionally treated by an orthopedist, a rheumatologist, and an internist.

Complementary physicians are a natural choice for those suffering from known allergic disorders as well. If you are in the midst of weekly or less-frequent allergy infections, these practitioners offer a new type of therapy, which you can administer to yourself at home. They can test for irritants such as perfumes, automobile exhaust, and newsprint. You might be asked to reduce your intake of such foods as wheat, corn, egg, milk products, citrus, and others. If you have yeast overgrowth and might be sensitive or intolerant to your bodys yeast, known as candida, natural, nondrug symptom relievers are available.

The field of allergy diagnosis and therapy has a new breed of practitioners, who tend to take a more empirical and less dogmatic view of how to diagnose and treat problems related to allergic processes. This book summarizes the current knowledge of these physicians, who might be described as environmental medicine detectives.

DIAGNOSED AND UNDIAGNOSED ALLERGY DISORDERS

Allergy in the population is so prevalent that you very likely have some allergic processes at some level. How do you fit into the following spectrum of allergy-related problems?

Obvious allergy that is clearly diagnosed, such as hay fever.

Immediate reactions to specific allergens, such as when exposure to a cat leads to reddened skin, or a dusty room provokes a runny nose and tearing eyes.

Well-known classic symptoms of allergy where the agents have not been identified yet the allergic process is obvious: nasal congestion, sinus congestion, postnasal drip.

Mysterious agents that may provoke less-obvious allergic reactions than the above, and which might be solved by an environmental medicine detective. Mysterious agents can range from chemicals in the workplacesuch as from a photocopying machineto molds growing in the home.