Millions of people who suffer from allergies have benefited from chiropractic care. Why? Because chiropractic is a method of health care that allows the body to function at its best, which is very important to allergy sufferers.
Your immune system is influenced by your nervous system, hormones, diet, and emotional stress. If unhealthy, your immune system may fail to recognize and remove abnormal cells (such as cancer), may not overcome infection, may overreact to foreign substances (bee sting, penicillin, foods, or drugs), may become depressed (as in AIDS), or even attack itself (autoimmune disease).
The most common immune disorder is the allergic reaction which occurs when the immune system overreacts to an allergen (dust, pollen, milk, cat or dog dander, etc.) and produces too many neutralizing chemicals (especially histamines) to counteract it.
No one knows for sure what causes allergies, although according to some researchers childhood vaccines are suspect. Walene James has stated: "Vaccinations lay the foundation for autoimmune diseases and other disorders of the immune system such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus erythematosus, scleroderma,...It is reasonable to assume that our contemporary epidemic of allergies has at least some of its roots in the practice of vaccination".
Medicine has no cure for allergies, only treatment, and according to Robert Mendelsohn, M.D., "You can depend on most doctors to largely ignore the cause...unfortunately, their treatment is often worse than the disease, especially since the relatively safe folk-measures of yesteryear have been replaced by sophisticated, dangerous drugs of modern medicine".
Since runny eyes, irritation, redness, fullness in the sinuses, and other allergy symptoms are caused by histamines, antihistamines are often prescribed to dry mucus membranes. However, antihistamines can cause serious heart problems and should not be used with alcohol, sedatives, or tranquilizers. In the May 1994 issue of Journal of the National Cancer Institute Canadian researchers showed that certain antihistamines (ClaritinTM, HismanalTM, and AtaraxTM) make cancerous tumors grow quicker in lab rodents.
What can be done to help allergies? First off, clinical studies have shown that breastfed babies have fewer allergies and fewer severe infections than formula fed babies. So if you are having a baby, try to breastfeed. A nutritional consultation may find certain food
allergies that you may have. Some of the more allergy causing foods are milk, red meat, eggs.
What can chiropractic do? By locating, analyzing, and correcting vertebral subluxations, chiropractic helps the nervous system to function with less interference, helping to normalize body chemistry, and allow immune system to function more efficiently--something all allergy sufferers need.
Recent understandings in psychoneuroimmunology reveal that when the nervous system functions better the immune system benefits. Studies have shown that regular chiropractic care can boost your immunity 200 to 400%!!
Chiropractors correct a basic cause of body malfunction to improve the function of your immune system. Please note that the chiropractic approach is to remove vertebral subluxations, a common spinal distortion that puts stress on your nervous system. Freed of nervous system stress, your body will work more efficiently to neutralize these toxic substances and a body which has malfunctioning defense mechanisms cannot. The emphasis on allergies must be on building a healthy body, not on futilely trying to remove the allergens or treating the symptoms.
