How Do Chiropractors Treat Allergies?

Almost everyone deals with allergies. During allergy season, many people stock up on over-the-counter medications. Allergy symptoms can include itchy, watery eyes and a stuffy, sneezy nose.

In industrialized nations, the most common chronic sickness is allergies. More people seem to be developing them all the time. Studies say up to 40 percent of the people all over the globe have one or more allergies. In a few nations, this figure has jumped to 50 percent in the past 10 years.

Changes in our environment, like global warming and air pollution, increase allergy symptoms. Allergies decrease quality of life, lessen our productivity, and increase the cost of healthcare.  The cost of healthcare is not something to sneeze about! Every year, Americans spend over three billion dollars between medicine, sick days lost at work, and doctor bills. It’s estimated that people all over the world pay out eight billion bucks annual on just the medications for allergies.

Chiropractic care can help those who suffer from allergies and don’t want to use drugs to treat their allergies. Chiropractors can provide treatment not involving medications. The following explains the ways chiropractors can provide allergy relief:

What causes allergies?

An allergy is really a group of illnesses. They attack a person’s immune system and cause it to work overtime due to what is usually a benign substance. The allergy happens once the person’s immune system encounters an irritant. The immune system thinks the irritant is dangerous. Thus it attacks more strongly than is required. Five of the allergies that appear most commonly are:

1. Pollens
2. Grasses
3. Dust mites
4. Molds
5. Various types of Weeds

When someone inhales, touches or eats one of those irritants, their body creates a type of antibiotic known as immunoglobulin. This triggers the release of histamines, which ravage the whole body. This causes a drop in blood pressure, dilated blood vessels, and fluid to fill the spaces between the nearby cells.

This fiery retort produces uncomfortable symptoms. You may vomit, feel nauseated, sneeze and itch. If it affects the whole body, it may even become a threat to the patient’s life.

How the Immune System reacts to stress, allergies

Even now, physicians don’t completely understand how allergies are produced, but they have figured out one thing that plays a a part – stress. Doctors have linked having an allergy along with suffering a lot of mental stress. In fact, a lot of allergies have for many years been thought of as psychosomatic problems that got worse when a patient had a high level of mental stress.

The nervous and immune systems are linked closely. Psychoneuroimmunology is the study of the way these two systems interact. It studies how the body perceives stress and in turn how this brings about changes in the immune system. Scientists discovered both allergies and stress cause inflammatory responses that are similar. These studies showed stress can worsen the body’s immune system response to allergens.

Long-lasting stress can also work to wear out a person’s adrenal glands. That causes the production of an anti-inflammatory hormone called cortisol. If there isn’t enough cortisol produced to soothe the body’s allergic reaction, the symptoms may get more serious.

How Can Chiropractic Treatment Help?

The fact that the immune and nervous systems are closely related is great for people who see chiropractors. A chiropractor can improve the signals between the spinal cord and brain. This helps regulate and coordinate how the body reacts to allergens.

A chiropractor can:

Help to strengthen the body’s immune system. 

Spinal misalignment can disturb the path the brain uses to communicate with the body. For instance, irritation of the upper cervical joint could harm your immune system and make allergies worse. Chiropractic manipulation restores opens the path for the spine and brain to communicate.

Normalize stress hormones. 

In a lot of people who suffer from allergies, their adrenal glands are also weak. This causes the body to be less able to moderate its reaction to allergens. The nerves in the spine fed into the adrenal glands, therefore, if the spine is in proper alignment, it helps the body regular how much cortisol it makes. This in turn aids in reducing the seriousness of allergic reactions.

Supports the respiratory system. 

Similarly to a person’s immune system, their respiratory system requires that the brain’s data path stays clear. A chiropractor can work to maintain these pathways. Open pathways strengthen the respiratory system to better fight an allergic attack.

Endorse changes in a person’s lifestyle and diet. 

Some foods, along with other environmental factors could help or make allergic reactions worse. A chiropractor can endorse changes to strengthen a person’s health and make them more comfortable. When chiropractic treatments improve the communication between a person’s respiratory, nervous and immune systems, patients are able to get through allergy season without taking medicines.