At least one out of every 5 Americans suffers from allergies. Common causes of allergy symptoms include food allergies such as peanut allergy or milk allergy, and seasonal allergies resulting from grass, weed, tree pollen, or various molds. Cat allergies and dog allergies can also cause miserable symptoms such as itchy eyes, sneezing, nasal congestion, and wheezing. Allergic skin conditions can cause a rash and itchy skin.

Getting to the root cause of allergies is a difficult process. You need a good alternative healthcare practitioner to get to the bottom of your allergy issues. You need help determining what exactly the triggers are be they food, animal dander or pollen and if there are more serious underlying health issues at the root of your problems. You should also consult the section on Candidiasis to learn about how an overgrowth of the Candida yeast in our bodies can aggravate and cause allergy symptoms.

Hay fever symptoms can be relieved with honey and vitamin C. Honey has been noted to help clear sinuses and control the puffy, red, itchy eyes one gets. Honey is believed to act as a homeopathic remedy since it contains trace amounts of pollen and helps immunize the body. But be sure to purchase organic, raw honey, preferably from the same area where you live so it will reflect the trees and flowers in your area. Raw honey often has a white color not amber which most always is a sign that the honey has been processed using heat.

Vitamin C taken in doses of 500 to 1000 mg, four times per day, has an anti-histamine effect. But don't overdo it as high doses of vitamin C can cause diarrhea.

Increasing the amount of fiber in your diet can help as well. If you tend to be constipated or have irregular bowel movements  this could contribute to your hay fever symptoms

Food allergies are very common and can be life threatening. Food allergies have been known to cause headaches, skin problems, muscle and joint pain, even asthma and insomnia. Many alternative healthcare practitioners advocate The Elimination Diet to determine which foods could be causing problems.This simple but powerful approach does not medicate or mask the symptoms but seeks to discover and eliminate the culprits.

Basically the diet starts out with eating one food only, such as fresh fruit, for at least 48 hours. If the pain or other symptoms you’ve been experiencing start to subside or disappear then it is indicative that foods of some kind are triggering your problems. However, if after being on the diet for a few more days you experience no improvement in your symptoms, then you have potentially ruled out foods as the culprit. However, if you do feel better, work with your alternative healthcare practitioner such as a nutritionist or Osteopath to determine what foods may be causing the problems.

Wheat is a common allergy and wheat gluten is a cheap protein source that is added to many processed foods. Eliminate all bread and pasta from your diet for a few weeks and see how you feel. If your symptoms subside and your feeling of wellness increases, you are probably on to something, and you could be allergic to wheat or wheat gluten. You can try eating some bread again and pay attention to the signals your body sends you. Do you get a headache within an hour of eating the bread, do you get some wheezing. If so it’s hard not to conclude that there could be some connection and you may be Gluten Intolerant. There are now many good Gluten Free products in stores today such as breads, cookies, pizza crusts, and crackers. Try switching to those products and see how your body reacts.

After being away from the offending food and re-introducing it to your diet, if the symptoms return you need to consult and work with a healthcare practitioner to determine if there are other foods that could be causing problems. In addition to wheat, soy, corn, eggs, milk, pork and chocolate have also been known to cause allergic reactions in humans and those reactions can manifest themselves in the form of headaches, arthritic joint paint, rashes, itching, wheezing, sinus congestion and even fatigue. But we can’t emphasize enough that it is good to experiment on your own with the elimination diet but you need to work with a healthcare practitioner especially if you have some pre-existing health conditions or to determine if a more serious health issue is present and the food is merely a trigger.

Food allergies can be an indication of more serious healthcare issues with your body otherwise the entire world would be allergic to corn, wheat, eggs and pork. These offending foods are the trigger indicating that the ultimate cause may lie elsewhere in your body. People who suffer from allergies may also be chronically dehydrated, deficient in vital nutrients such as calcium, suffer from nerve irritation, low stomach acid and digestive issues, poor gallbladder function or a toxic liver. So you see you really need to work with an alternative healthcare provider to keep digging to get to the ultimate root cause of the condition. Once you have done that, many people can re-introduce those foods and pets they love to their lives and diet without them triggering uncomfortable symptoms.