Allergy season has arrived. It’s hard to enjoy the fresh flowers, sprouting trees, and welcomed sunshine at the park when you’re suffering. You know the feeling all too well; itchy, watery, red, flat-out irritating eyes.
Seasonal allergies are caused by your immune system interpreting the new pollen or flowers blooming as a threat. When it responds, it produces IgE antibodies to “protect” you. Guarding you causes the release of histamine, leading to all the classic allergy symptoms. (A flaw in the immune system, unfortunately).
A slew of seasonal allergy treatments exist on the market. But for those wanting to heal their body naturally, Integrative Vision supports your health and vision goals.
Today we’re talking about how your immune system plays a vital role in your eye allergy symptoms, what triggers look like, and 5 natural ways to improve your immune function through healthy choices.
How The Immune Response Affects Your Eye Allergy Symptoms
When your immune system produces IgE antibodies, it releases histamine from your cells. When you have too much histamine, problems set in. Think of histamine like an empty cup in your body. When it can’t hold anymore, it spills over and causes the horrible symptoms you experience.
Eye Allergy Triggers
Allergies can strike at any time if your immune system decides it doesn’t like something. While seasonal allergies are the main topic here, it’s important to understand allergy symptoms can happen anywhere, anytime.
Main Eye Allergen Triggers:
- Pollen
- Grass
- Trees
- Weeds & Flowers
- Pet Dander
- Dust Mites
- Mold
- Perfume
- Smoke
As you can see, the list contains main outdoor and indoor allergens that can cause you trouble.
Eye Allergy Symptoms
Have you ever avoided an outside BBQ because you end up red-eyed with a runny nose? Symptoms can range from irritating to downright debilitating.
Primary Allergy Symptoms:
- Red
- Swollen & Itchy
- Burning
- Sensitivity To Light
- Watery
- Swollen
On top of your eye allergy symptoms, you may notice a sore throat, coughing, headache, and stuffy nose. While this flaw in the immune system adds challenges — there are ways to help.
The normal management of seasonal allergies consists of eye drops, nasal sprays, antihistamines, allergy shots, and more. We’re not here to say that sometimes you won’t need these useful treatments.
However, we look beyond band-aid treatments — using nutrition to help heal your body from the inside. Your body can be supported in natural ways, and we’re going to share our five favorite methods to help improve your seasonal allergy symptoms.
5 Natural Ways To Manage and Prevent Allergy Symptoms
1. Whole Foods & Clean Eating
A healthy body starts with what we put into it. Unfortunately, our fast-paced lives — and food choices that follow — can set us up for disaster.
- Whole foods (fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, etc.) provide dense nutrition to your body.
- Processed foods (fast food, pizza, frozen meals, etc.) don’t yield the same nutrients, vitamins, and minerals we need for optimal health.
Whole foods usually aren’t in a package! The vitamins and minerals we do (or don’t) absorb in our gut microbiome directly affect our eye health because absorption happens in your gut microbiome. A diet filled with whole foods ensures proper absorption, eye health, and gut health.
2. Increase Gut Health with Manuka Honey
Honey works as an authentic healing agent to your gut. It might appear counterintuitive since it’s almost all entirely sugar.
Manuka Honey is completely natural, beneficial, and improves gut health because it contains oligosaccharides. This tiny type of carbohydrate acts as a prebiotic because it feeds the good bacteria in our gut. (You don’t think of those little helpers very often, right?) A healthy balance of gut bacteria can boost your immune system to fight those pesky allergy symptoms!
Since Dr. Gioia became certified in functional medicine, she proudly partners with Fullscript. This allows her patients and nonpatients to get the best practitioner-grade supplements. (All you do is enter your email!)
3. Antihistamine Foods
If you suffer from allergies, you’re familiar with antihistamines. While effective, they leave unpleasant side effects, like grogginess. You can actually fuel your body with antihistamine foods!
Yummy goodness like berries, apples, and citrus slow down or prevent damage to your cells from free radicals. They naturally contain powerful antioxidants (quercetin and anthocyanins) to fight off harmful damage. When antioxidants fight off free radicals, this limits inflammation in your body. Less inflammation equals fewer allergy symptoms — yay!
4. Vitamin D3 Liquid
Vitamin D deficiency is considered a global health crisis. We’re all familiar with sunshine being linked to vitamin D, which helps with seasonal depression. But it also aids your immune system.
Vitamin D receptors are found in immune cells. So what does this mean? Vitamin D guides numerous musculoskeletal functions and reduces the risk of chronic illnesses, like diabetes, autoimmune diseases, and even some cancers. It plays a significant role in your gut microbiome as well. It keeps the balance in check, which helps everything else in your body. It’s truly a domino effect of nourishing health when your cells get what they need.
You can find multiple liquid vitamin D3 supplement options here.
5. Reduce Stress
This advice can sound like a broken record but it’s indispensable for your health. We know, it’s easier said than done with demanding careers, kids, the pandemic, and feeling like you don’t have time.
But finding healthy ways to manage your stress isn’t just helpful during seasonal allergy flare-ups, it’s important to reduce inflammation all year long. Stress causes, well, more stress on your immune system, leading to more inflammation and more problems.
When you have healthy, sustainable ways to manage your stress levels, your entire body benefits. If yoga isn’t your thing, maybe reading a book will be? Try a walk (after eating some berries!), or listen to a new podcast. Do whatever works for you — that also promotes overall healthy choices.
Integrative Vision Guides You While Improving Your Health
Changing your diet isn’t easy and may seem like a long route to reducing your allergy symptoms. Overall, it provides longer-lasting results. When you’re on the road to healing yourself naturally, trustworthy guidance makes all the difference. Dr. Neda Gioia is Integrative Vision’s passionate eye doctor who took nutrition to the next level in her practice.
She not only offers exceptional eye care, exceeding all your vision needs — she strives to put your health first. Natural solutions give your body what it truly needs for your overall well-being. We know how much seasonal allergies can drag you down, and hope some of our solutions help you.
If you’re interested in learning more about how to set up your eye and overall health, look into our SEEHealth program. An exclusive 6-month program to set you up to eat healthy for life.
You get direct health coaching by Dr. Gioia herself, educational resources, plans + recipes, plus so many more healthy recommendations. We’ll even share some great exercises if you want!
Put yourself first — for a healthy life.
Learn More About SEEHealth Today!
