by NANCY GAHLES, DC, CCH, RSHom(NA)
Ah, springtime! How greatly we anticipate its coming after a long, cold winter! The bursting of greenand budding of flowers appeal to our senses for their color, fragrance, and promise of new growth.
To the untrained eye, one hay fever case may look like another, but homeopaths know that each person’s symptoms and story are different. Yet each of us interprets information from our senses uniquely. One person may inhale the aroma of spring hyacinths and delight in their perfume—while the very presence of cut flowers in the room may send another person into fits of sneezing. One may revel in the first warm winds of March or April—while another may stay indoors hoping to avoid that puffy-eye, scratchy throat, runny nose reaction to windborne pollen. Such differences are of great interest to homeopaths,since it is the unique way that a patient reacts to stimuli that can point the practitioner to a healing remedy.
Tis the season?
Spring brings a steady stream of patients into my office complaining of “hay fever.” This moniker was originally used because people developed upper respiratory symptoms during haying season—usually late spring and early summer, when grasses were being cut and dried in the hayfields. The name stuck, but we now more accurately call such symptoms “seasonal allergies,” as they can occur in spring, summer, fall, and even winter, in mild climates—whenever trees, grasses, and weeds blossom and emit their pollen. The tiny pollen granules of the birch tree, for example, are perfectly designed to blow in the wind and pollinate other birch trees. Dry, windy days, when pollen can move freely, are the worst for hay fever sufferers; a good rain can clear the air and keep the pollen counts down. Then again, too much rain or decaying matter can cause some people to react to mold and fungal spores.
Although hay fever may not be life threatening nor last for more than a month or two, it certainly can drag a person down. A recent study noted that worker productivity declines during hay fever season because of time away from work.According to the Centers for Disease Control, approximately 19 million U.S. adults suffer with hay fever, and the illness accounts for 11 million doctor visits each year. Add to that another 20-30 million people with allergic rhinitis from non-seasonal sources like house dust, animal dander, and air pollutants, and you have a lot of miserable people!
You may feel the congestion in your head, nose, sinuses, or chest as your body mounts an inflammatory response to the allergen. Coughing, sneezing, headache, irritated eyes, sore throat, itching, and a runny or stuffy nose are typical.Most people run to the drugstore or their doctor for antihistamines such as Allegra®, Benadryl®, or Zyrtec®, decongestants such as Sudafed®, or steroids such as Nasonex® for relief. The frustrating part about this regimen is that it only addresses the symptoms, not the underlying problem. You must take these medicines daily, they are often only partially successful, and they frequently come with unwelcome side effects (drowsiness, dizziness, insomnia, and worse).
Homeopathic treatment is different. It aims to boost the person’s immune system and eliminate their propensity to hay fever and allergies in the first place. This typically requires careful prescribing by an experienced homeopath, and it may take several seasons to achieve. We aren’t always successful (allergy cases can be difficult), but I have seen many patients whose lifelong hay fever tendencies have been greatly reduced or eliminated—and they are thrilled with the results! Home prescribers may take heart as well, because you can often help your hay fever symptoms yourself; that is, you might still get hay fever every year, but you can relieve symptoms without side effects with wellchosen homeopathic remedies.
Consider the environment
When a person with seasonal or other allergies comes to see me, I first ask them about their environment. It is often surprising what I learn. For example, a mother once brought her six-month-old baby to see me. The little girl had been diagnosed with severe allergies and was on several medications for her coughing and extreme congestion. The mom was fearful of giving her more, especially since none were really working.
Before I ran to the homeopathic repertory to look for a remedy, I asked a few simple questions about their home: Is there an animal living with you? Sleeping with you? Are there smokers in the house? Do you have carpeting? Have you recently painted or are you undergoing construction? The mom was surprised at my questions and told me that she and her husband were indeed putting on an addition to the house for the new baby. They had hung a plastic barrier between the addition and the existing house, but she did admit to dust, drafts, and chaos! It may be that this baby had susceptibility to dust as an allergen. It is more likely, however, that her immature immune system was being overwhelmed with environmental exposure to contaminants. The resolution was not a homeopathic remedy this time but moving the family to the grandmother’s house until renovations were complete. This completely solved the baby’s allergy.
As homeopaths we may think that all we have to offer is a well-chosen homeopathic remedy. But even Hahnemann, homeopathy’s founder, exhorted people to pay attention to their environment and proper hygiene. He also used other therapeutic approaches as called for by the case (Hahnemann’s Organon, Aphorisms 286–291). For those with a tendency to seasonal allergies, I often recommend basic lifestyle and dietary approaches to support a healthy immune system.
Look deeply
To the untrained eye, one hay fever case may look like another, but homeopaths know that each person’s symptoms and story are different.We are trained to elicit differentiating details—of both the hay fever and of the person. Although the baby’s case mentioned above is an extreme example of a causative factor, the homeopath will frequently find circumstances that cause or contribute to a patient’s ongoing allergic state. Prolonged grief, caretaking of a sick or dying loved one, lack of sleep, or constant worrying can stress a person’s entire system and lower the natural immunity to a point where they become susceptible to environmental stimuli (e.g., pollen, wind, heat, or cold) that they would normally be able to handle. It behooves the homeopath to inquire in depth about possible causes, as well as into the patient’s mental and emotional state, since the answers can lead us to the one remedy out of thousands that will improve the person’s overall health and reduce their susceptibility to stressors.
Fave 4 for hay fever
If you don’t have a homeopathic professional for in-depth prescribing, fear not. Descriptions of my four favorite remedies for hay fever are below. If one fits your symptoms, you might get relief by taking it. If not, consult one of the many self-care books for more possible remedy choices, or see an experienced homeopath. (Consult the NCH’s 2008 Directory of Practitioners, which is sent by U.S. mail to NCH members and freely available online at www.NationalCenterForHomeopathy.org)
Flowing like a faucet
Allium cepa, a homeopathic medicine prepared from red onion, may be the one most used for seasonal allergy symptoms, especially during spring and August. People needing Allium cepa will have symptoms reminiscent of the way one feels when chopping onions. The eyes water and the tears flow like a faucet. The nose also runs profusely, and this discharge is burning, causing a raw, redness under the nose and upper lip, often with frequent sneezing. Hoarseness and tickling of the throat may be present with a hacking cough. Damp cold winds often precipitate this condition. People needing Allium cepa may also suffer from various local inflammations and be susceptible to skin rashes.
When attempting to find a remedy for someone with hay fever, the homeopath might be well served to “peel the layers of the onion away” and find out about the patient’s mental/emotional state and dreams. Those needing Allium cepa may be melancholy and fear that their pain will become unbearable. According to Vermeulen’s Prisma materia medica, they may have “constant dreams of battles, fights, precipices, storms at sea, and difficulty in reaching the coast, of deep wells, and efforts to get out of them.” Thematically, this can represent the melancholy and despair the patient feels over their health difficulties. It is interesting to note that onions and garlic, both members of the Liliaceae or Lily family of plants, have long been used to ward off evil and have been brought into battle for protection.
More than meets the eye
Euphrasia is a remedy for which I have a special fondness because it is named for one of the Three Graces in Greek mythology, Euphrosyne, who was beloved for her qualities of joy and happiness and whose name means “gladness.” It is said that Euphrasia (both the herb and the homeopathic remedy made from the herb) cures eyesight so to bring gladness into the life of the sufferer, which is why the common name of the herb is “eyebright.”
Euphrasia has an affinity to the mucous membranes of the eyes, and hay fever sufferers who need this remedy have prominent eye symptoms. Their tears and eye discharges are burning, but any nasal discharge is bland (which is the opposite of Allium cepa). They must constantly wipe burning tears from the eyes or “wink” away the sensation of sand or a hair in the eye. The eyelid margins are swollen and itchy, and the corners of the eyes are red. The person feels worse from sunlight and warm southerly winds.
If you look more deeply into the case of this hay fever sufferer, you will often find that the person is a quiet type who is easily frightened. A strange symptom that may be present is confusion of mind that gets better from washing the face. Aberration of speech, such as stuttering on the first word of a sentence may be present as well. So, by scratching the surface, you often find more than meets the eye!
Aaaah-CHOOOO!
Sabadilla, a homeopathic remedy prepared from another member of the Lily family of plants, is frequently prescribed for people with hay fever, especially if they have violent sneezing episodes with a runny, stuffy, itchy, and/or tingly nose. Homeopath J.T. Kent noted that people needing Sabadilla are oversensitive to their surroundings, to odors like garlic, and even to odors generally considered pleasant, such as those from flowers or apples, which may have to be removed from the house in order to avert an attack.
Those needing Sabadilla often have severe headaches with cold sweats on the forehead, bursting pain above the eyes, and watering, tearing, red, burning eyes. This could easily mimic a head cold or sinusitis. In fact, during allergy season, it can be difficult to know for certain whether someone’s symptoms are triggered by allergies or a viral or bacterial infection.
I believe that many sore throats that come on during allergy season may be misdiagnosed as strep, since people forget that seasonal allergies can affect the throat, too. In fact, Sabadilla is one of our most important throat remedies. The pain is so exquisite that the patient would rather spit than swallow their saliva, although, in counterpoint, they have a strong desire to swallow. This is because the mouth and throat feel extremely dry, which makes the condition all the more torturous. Consider Sabadilla when you ask a person to stick out their tongue to see the throat and they simply refuse because of the pain. The person may desire cold milk but be averse to cold water and cold foods. Juicy things and lemonade may offer some comfort. An interesting polarity is that they may crave hot things both temperature-wise and spicy.
When the homeopath delves deeper, inquiring into the mental/emotional state of such an allergy sufferer, they may find some strange, rare, and peculiar symptoms to confirm a prescription of Sabadilla. One example is that someone needing Sabadilla may have erroneous notions about themselves and the state of their body. In his Concordant Materia Medica, Vermeulen describes it this way: “Imagines that he is very sick; that parts are shrunken; that she is pregnant [when only distended with flatus]; that she has cancer … Erroneus [fixed] ideas; limbs are crooked, chin is elongated; one side larger than the other…” In Vermeulen’s Prisma, he elaborates, saying that a unique Sabadilla symptom may include erroneous ideas about the genital area being diminished and shrunken.
Sally Sabadilla
In fact, one patient who came to see me for help with her chronic seasonal and other allergies revealed, on questioning, that she felt that her genital area did not fit correctly into her body. Forty-five-year-old “Sally” had long suffered with allergies, getting severe spasmodic sneezing attacks in the presence of flowers, especially roses, as well as perfumes and scented soaps. Her mouth would get itchy and feel swollen, although it wouldn’t look swollen (an altered perception about her body), and her eyes would get red and itchy. In addition to having allergies, she had suffered since childhood with a chronic vaginal yeast infection that was burning and irritating.
Sally’s fixed ideas about the state of her body echoed throughout our conversation as you can hear in her comments: “I feel as if my body is too tight for me. I’m swelling from the inside out. My body’s not mine. My skin is too small. Everything feels tight around me. I feel swollen, bloated but I’m not necessarily bloated. I feel as if things don’t fit together properly [points to her pelvis]. It’s my organs, it’s me. I just don’t fit in my body. Maybe it’s the pressure in my vagina that things are trying to push out.”
I prescribed Sabadilla 200c, and Sally’s allergies became much worse for about four days and included severe throat pain. Some symptoms that she’d had in the past—knee pains and gum abscess—also flared up. Although this was not a pleasant experience for Sally, homeopaths take such an aggravation of current symptoms and a return of old symptoms as a very positive sign of healing. She soon got over these acute flare-ups—and began feeling much better than she had in a long time. Her yeast infections gradually subsided as well.
It has been four years since I first treated Sally, and her severe allergies and longstanding yeast infection are things of the past. Over these four years, I gave her two additional doses of Sabadilla when her health seemed to be backsliding just a bit, and she picked right up and continues to do well. Sally no longer speaks of feeling like she doesn’t fit in her body. She is thrilled with her newfound health and her freedom to stop and smell the roses, thanks to homeopathy!
Enjoy the process … and the results!
The challenge of an acute upper respiratory illness with congestion is one we all face at one time or another. Is it a cold, a virus, or an allergy? The sublime truth is that it is none of these. It is a person who is susceptible to environmental influences and whose system is showing signs that it is unable to properly adapt. Upon inquiry, you will discover the story of how, when, where, and why. In cyclic, periodic, or recurrent conditions, there is a pattern that will become clear when you listen and observe with an open mind and heart. This pattern will lead you to the homeopathic remedy that will unlock the case and bring back the joys of the seasons—spring, summer, and fall—to the hay fever sufferer. True, homeopathy is not always a quick fix. Finding the right remedy can be labor intensive. But it is a labor of love.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nancy Gahles, DC, CCH, RSHom(NA), NCH President of the Board, practices homeopathy and chiropractic in New York City and Belle Harbor, NY. She operates Health and Harmony Wellness Education, which offers consultations and symposia on Complementary and Alternative Medicine and Integrative Medicine. She also serves as a CAM expert on the panel of Mothering magazine.