Spring, for me, is the most beautiful time of year. Longer warmer days, flowers in blossom, green leaves emerging, insects buzzing, birds chirping – it is all so beautiful. However, this was certainly not how my wife, Gillian, experienced this time of year. When we first met, spring often meant an aggravation of the many allergic symptoms that she felt throughout the entire year. Actually, the spring and autumn months saw the return of the tissue paper pile next to the bed, as Gillian blew her nose all night long! All I can say is, ‘Good thing for Chinese herbal medicine”, as these really did change Gillian’s relationship to her environment.
Gillian, like many other people in the world, had what is called perennial allergic rhinitis, which is basically year round hay-fever that is triggered by everything from dust to animal dander to pollen to mould. Even temperature changes could be a trigger, going from a warm space to a cold one. Or even physical exertion. On top of the hay fever, Gillian also had asthma, widespread eczema, and hives (even anaphylaxis) to certain foods. She had the full blown stereotypical ‘atopic’ presentation, a state she inherited from both of her parents (usually a worse prognosis).
Most people manage their allergies through antihistamines, which may or may not actually work very well, and may actually make them feel rather ‘speedy’ or ‘dopey’, depending on which type they take. Some people start to rely on nasal sprays that contain small amounts of corticosteroids. All of this, of course, does not offer a ‘cure’ by any means, representing more of a long term dependency than anything.
So when Gillian started herbal treatment, initially for her eczema (which cleared very well), she eventually noticed that a lot of her other problems started to disappear. First was the roll of tissue paper, as it was no longer needed because her hay fever symptoms were gone. Then her asthma disappeared (except to cats, although the reaction was now greatly reduced), and many of her food allergies, including the dairy and eggs which previously gave her anaphylactic reactions in the past (I took Gillian on a holiday to Italy when we discovered she was free of those food issues). After stopping the herbal medicines, now 10+ years later, Gillian continues to have clear skin, clear breathing, no sneezing, itchy eyes, or runny nose, and she can enjoy a good tasting cheesy omelette. Gillian has to be careful with certain seafoods still, like salmon, and cannot be around cats for too long, but otherwise she is a completely different person, much less reactionary to her environment. The herbal medicines seemed to have healed the root issues as to why she was reacting in the first place, rather than just suppressing her symptoms.
Modern published research on the effectiveness of certain herbal medicines for allergic rhinitis has shown some interesting results. For example, one study using the herbal formula xin yi san for the treatment of allergic rhinitis found that, not only did the nasal symptoms reduce, an immune-modulating effect was observed in the blood tests drawn – which means that, rather than a patients symptoms being simply suppressed, as is how a steroid or antihistamine would work, a deeper curative effective may be achieved. Pretty cool hey!
Now I didn’t treat my wife, following in the golden rule of medicine to ‘not treat your family members’ (unless, of course, there is no other choice), and left all the healing decisions up to my first mentor, Dr. Wu. Watching Gillian heal, however, did motivate me to study Chinese medicine, and particularly to focus my studies on dermatology, allergy and auto-immune disease. Since I officially started practising Chinese medicine in 2005, I have now had the personal privilege to have helped many individuals and, like Gillian, I have noticed that most people find really good relief with Chinese herbal medicine.
Recently, an old patient, from 4 years ago, retuned to see me, not because he was suffering anymore, but because he thought he should come and let me know how well he was doing, and if there was anything he could do to keep himself feeling this way.
Basically, 4 years ago this gentleman appeared in my clinic suffering with the usual spring time upsets of runny nose, sneezing, and itchy eyes, and had become fed up with the dopey feeling that the antihistamines gave him. He responded very well to herbal treatment and continued taking herbal medicines off and on for about 2 years (through two allergy seasons). In the third year, he felt so good that he didn’t need to take anything, herbal or pharmaceutical, and lived a normal life enjoying the beauties that spring has to offer (I actually didn’t hear from him at all in the third year). Now it is the forth year since starting herbal treatment and he decided to come in for a check up which, as I said above, was really to show me how well he has been doing. It was actually from watching his neighbour suffer with hay fever that he was reminded of how bad his allergies used to be (easy to forgot the bad, when the problem is no longer a problem any longer!) Like my wife, his allergies seem to have become a thing of the past, thanks, of course, to Chinese herbal medicines.
Wishing you the best of health,
Dr. Trevor Erikson
Copyright © 2019 Dr. Trevor Erikson