Common Senses

Spring is my favorite time of year. With color bursting out everywhere, it feels as though everything has a new bright sheen to it. Goals seem more attainable and a fresh outlook on life awakens. It just feels good to be alive.

But for some, it's a season of trial. Last week we were invited to dinner at a friend's house and one of the young boys of the family was suffering noticeably with swollen, teary eyes. His father explained that both his sons have severe allergies and that he was particularly concerned because his elder son regularly experiences difficulty breathing. He explained that they were both too young to take allergy medication and that he wanted to do something now to help them as much as possible.

With every passing year allergies, asthma and chemical sensitivities become more prevelant in society, and can range in effect from discomfort and inconvenience to serious threat to the health and well-being of a person. There are many hypotheses for the causes of this increase, and it is difficult to define absolute limits on exposures because individuals have varying thresholds and severity of reactions to trigger substances. This is exacerbated by the challenge of accurately quantifying and regulating the exposures an average individual receives in his or her normal daily environment. In addition, a given individual's response can also change over time to those trigger substances and their concentration levels. For people living in cities and valleys, pollution can build up rapidly. For those in the country there is often pollution extending from the cities, there are fields and hillsides full of grass and flowers, and also cultivated fields treated regularly with fertilizers and pesticides.

I have many years' experience dealing with and learning about such issues and have found that there are ways to reduce the symptoms without, or in addition to, taking medication for them. There are simple things that can be tried in order to determine if it helps the individual. The essence of this approach is to:

1. Eliminate many of the manufactured chemical agents and synthetic products which are regularly present in our surroundings.
2. Reduce exposure to known common allergens in our environment.
   
3. Try to live a balanced and healthy life with regular exercise.

The concept is simple, but our lives have become inundated with products that we take at face value as having been tested and shown not to adversely affect health. Unfortunately the parameters for defining meaningful tests of these products in relation to the human body is usually ill-defined. And often these tests do not take into consideration the context of mixing one product with others that we may regularly come into contact with. The cumulative effect of years of routinely using a variety of products containing many different chemical combinations has not been determined.

Consequently, knowing where to start in trying to improve our personal environment is not always obvious. A simple and often effective place to start is to stop using products containing strong fragrance; for example, perfumes and fabric softeners. Eliminating these from regular use can substantially alleviate allergy symptoms and asthma.