Spring is here! 

Birds are building their nests; buds are forming on the trees and temperatures are getting warmer.

Unfortunately, for the over 50 million Americans suffering from allergies, spring also brings sneezing, watery, itchy eyes, congestion, headaches and more.

And if you happen to live in the Syracuse, NY area like I do, you are especially challenged!  The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA) has released a list of the worst cities to live in when you suffer from spring allergies…and Syracuse is number 3:

• Jackson, Mississippi
• Memphis, Tennessee
• Syracuse, New York
• Louisville, Kentucky
• McAllen, Texas

While most people rely on antihistamines, nasal sprays or decongestants for relief, they’re merely suppressing your symptoms, and they’re opening you up to side effects to boot!

Plus they don’t do a thing to address what’s really going on behind the scenes with allergies…

A hyper immune response that’s capable of wreaking havoc all over your body!

But when you instead tackle that wound-up immune system of yours and help smarten it up, a whole new world free of allergy symptoms (and allergy medications!) can open up for you.

Here are 9 very effective measures you can try:

1- Probiotic supplementation

Nothing beats probiotics when it comes to a healthy, properly functioning immune system.  Between 70-80 percent of your immune system resides in your gut, so it’s crucial to ensure that your gut microbiome is in a healthy balance.

Having a healthy diet is a good start, but your gut faces an onslaught of factors that can negate the best diet and upset your delicate flora balance--including stress, sugars, medications (especially antibiotics, antacids and birth control pills), tap water and glyphosate exposure.

That’s why probiotics like Super Shield can be extraordinarily helpful in combatting allergies for three reasons:

• They repopulate your supply of healthy bacteria;
• They can manufacture enzymes to help your body break down allergens; and
• They can support proper immune function and help counteract the hyper response seen with allergies!

Super Shield’s full-spectrum blend of 13 robust, well-studied probiotic strains has been helping allergy sufferers feel a whole lot better for over 10 years!

2- Eat the right foods (and stay away from the wrong ones!)

Foods that help with allergies include probiotic-rich foods like sauerkraut, kimchi, kombucha, and yogurt; lots of fresh vegetables; wild-caught fish; organic beef and chicken; spicy foods (they help clear mucus) and bone broths.

At the same time, avoid dairy (it can be mucus-forming), processed foods, artificial sweeteners, grains, sugars, soy (most of the soy processed in the US is genetically engineered), and margarine.

3- Get sources of quercetin

Quercetin, a bioflavonoid naturally found in cruciferous vegetables, onions, shallots, green teas and citrus fruit, stabilizes the release of histamine and helps to naturally curb allergy symptoms.

4- Use apple cider vinegar

Drinking a glass of water with a teaspoon of ACV and a splash of fresh lemon juice is a great way to help flush out your system each day.  Look for organic raw varieties that contain “the mother.”

You can also try “Fire Cider”—an organic ACV tonic that also contains honey, oranges, lemons, ginger, horseradish, garlic, turmeric and habanero pepper—a whole bunch of superstar anti-inflammatory foods!  I take a shot of Fire Cider every morning to start my day with a nice, cleansing anti-inflammatory boost.

5- Vitamin D supplementation

Vitamin D fights inflammatory immune responses like those seen in allergies and autoimmune diseases. 

It’s no coincidence that while our rates of vitamin D deficiency are increasing, so are the frequency and severity of these conditions.

We shun the shun because of (often exaggerated) fears of skin cancer, and slather ourselves in sunscreen when we do go out, so our bodies don’t have the opportunity they need to make vitamin D.

Plus food sources of vitamin D are very limited, so you can’t count on your diet providing what you need either.  For example, a glass of milk contains about 6 percent of your body’s daily vitamin D needs.  At that rate you’d have to rent a cow to get what you need from milk! 

That’s why supplementing with an outstanding product like Optimum DK Formula with FruiteX-B can help ensure your body has health-supporting levels of this crucial nutrient.

Optimum DK Formula provides a therapeutic 5,000 IU dose of vitamin D3, plus also its partners vitamins K1 and K2, and the mineral boron.  These helpful nutrients work synergistically together to support proper immune, bone and cardiovascular health.

6- Reduce stress

Stress can cause harmful changes to your microbiome and ignite inflammatory responses in your body.

That’s why when you’re under stress you find yourself getting sick over and over, or suffering digestive problems or having headaches.  Your immune system is challenged and inflammation is on the warpath inside of you.

It’s also why many people have allergy flare-ups during times of stress.

Do whatever it takes to curb stress in your life.  Measures like regular exercise (with your doctor’s OK), meditation, massage, acupuncture, infrared sauna, prayer, deep breathing and even adopting a pet can be a big help!

7- Eat local raw honey

If you have pollen allergies, the idea behind this is that eating honey produced by bees in your local area can help relieve allergies because the bees transfer pollen from the local plants to their honey…so you can become “desensitized” by eating a little of the honey every day. 

While mainstream medicine doesn’t “support” the use of local honey for allergies, I know many people who have sworn by it, and it makes perfect sense. 

8- Use eucalyptus oil

Eucalyptus oil can be soothing and healing to your mucus membranes.  You can place a drop on a cotton ball and sniff it several times during the day, or you can put it in a diffuser.

9- Try acupuncture

Acupuncture has been shown to be tremendously helpful with allergy symptoms, without the dangerous side effects of medications and shots!

Put these natural allergy-curbing measures to work for you and see how much better you can feel!

To your health,

Sherry Brescia