Help with Allergies

[L33_0h]

Hi all,

Apologies if this topic has been discussed, but I was hoping for some personalized advice. I am suffering with some horrible seasonal allergies (sneezing, blocked sinuses, itchy throat, and other fun symptoms), and I suspect there is a mindbody component to these symptoms.

I have read Healing Back Pain, the Mindbody Prescription, as well as Gabor Mate's work, so I am pretty well-versed in these concepts, and I have come to truly believe in them. I actually successfully eliminated my chronic upper back pain after just one reading of Sarno's books! I also am able to shut down pretty much all other pain just by remembering that it's TMS. Pretty cool!

The allergies are a different story. I am having trouble eliminating my allergies using the same approach. I suspect a few things, which I will outline below, and I am hoping to get support and advice on how to heal!

1. I think part of the problem is that I also have a physical diagnosis, which I didn't have for the back pain. I had an allergy test done, which showed a high level allergy to juniper trees (which I am surrounded by) and dust mites. I am also doing immunotherapy (SLIT drops) to try and treat the allergies. Could it be that since I have a physical diagnosis, my brain wont let go of these symptoms because it knows I wont fully reject the physical? Is it possible that these allergies are purely physical and have no emotional/mental/spiritual component?

2. There is a ton of information out there about how mindbody syndromes work, but it takes some real detective work to find a concise list of what to actually DO to eliminate these symptoms. I was hoping someone could come on here and offer up some legitimate techniques that I could apply to help me eliminate these allergies, assuming they aren't purely physical. As of yesterday I have started journaling about all of the aspects of my life (past, present and personality) that could be contributing to psychosomatic symptoms. I also try my best to meditate everyday. But it seems that my allergies are worse than ever! Can someone offer some non-ambiguous techniques and resources that could help me tackle this thing?

Hopefully I have outlined my issues well enough! I would also like to ask, has anyone here successfully eliminated their seasonal allergies using mindbody techniques? If so, I would LOVE to hear your story!

Thanks a bunch,

Leo

 

[Booble]

I've been working on allergies too. My thinking is that if my body is dumping out histamines, something in my brain is telling it to do that. (This smell, this food, this crud in the air) so maybe I can let my body know those things are OK, no need to protect me.

I've had "discussions" with myself (on paper) and have found that my inner self feels it is its job is to be on 24/7 watch and if I let up, something bad might get in. I have a fear of stopping that.
So instead I try to minimize the effect by greeting it (I know, I'm weird) instead of dwelling on it.
"Oh, hello clogged up head. Thanks but I think I'm OK without you." And go about my morning. Vs. "Oh, god, I feel awful. My head is so clogged up this morning. Ugh. how am I going to work today. This sucks. I wonder what is in the air. ugh, I feel bad. I wonder if it's going to get worse."
It seems to help. A few hours will pass and I'll notice that I'm fine.

One area I have had success on is maybe not allergies but related. Smells used to really make me feel yucky. I came up with a method of tying a smell into a positive even from the past. When the mock oranges on my neighbors bushes are in full bloom, they are sooooooo strong scented. Instead of focusing on how uncomfortable and yucky they make me feel, I started thinking about years ago when I moved to this (tropical) location and all the smells and everything were exciting and happy. Interestingly I only needed to do that a few times and I became desensitized to it.
I've done that for all smells that bother me - remembering some positive event that can be loosely related to the smell - and it seems to have worked.
Full on allergies is harder. Still working on that!

 

[JanAtheCPA]

Instead of focusing on how uncomfortable and yucky they make me feel, I started thinking about years ago when I moved to this (tropical) location and all the smells and everything were exciting and happy. Interestingly I only needed to do that a few times and I became desensitized to it.

Nice, Booble!

Is it possible that these allergies are purely physical and have no emotional/mental/spiritual component?

Hey, Leo - I think these are good questions and this discussion might also be valuable to others. My answer to this particular question is that every sensation we feel in our bodies is always going to be a combination. ALWAYS. This is because all sensations, as well as all physical processes, are created and managed ENTIRELY by our brains. We tend to forget this neurological fact.

Case in point: in 2008 I crashed my bike and landed hard on my left hip, and I knew I had done something BAD, because the pain was so extreme. We all know that pain is created at an injury in order to warn us to (in this case) not move the injured body part, right? So my pain level was probably about an 8, until the ER doc came back with my x-rays and said "Okay, you've got a simple non-displaced fracture in the neck of your femur, and Ortho can pin it up tomorrow and get you on crutches the next day". My pain level IMMEDIATELY dropped to about a 3. I was so f'ing relieved I wouldn't be bed-bound for lord knows how long (I did have that option, BTW, but I opted for the surgery, thx to good insurance coverage). I refused opioids and made do with ibuprofen and acetaminophen before and after the surgery and throughout my recovery and rehab. Didn't want them, simply decided they were unnecessary, because I felt like I was in good hands, we had a plan, a schedule of recovery, and I was going to do everything according to instructions. It was inconvenient as hell, but pain? It was at the bottom of my list of concerns.

There's no reason why allergies would be any different. Everyone knows that allergies occur at widely varying levels, between individuals, and between different years. Of course there's going to be an emotional component that can make them worse than they need to be, and the medical community actually does know this (it's an extremely well-known connection with asthma). Plus, the connection between stress and inflammation is known and becoming more well-known all the time. And guess what - a histamine response is just another form of inflammation.

I love everything that @Booble says about this. Above all, don't overthink it (I see overthinking in most of your post, my friend ). This really ain't rocket science. It IS a function of learning to talk back to our irrational brains, which literally interpret every stress we encounter in this crazy modern world as if it's a sabre-tooth tiger waiting to eat us, because our primitive brains simply do not comprehend modern stressors.

Your number one goal is to calm your nervous system. And I say this as someone whose nervous system is pretty hyper, and has been for just short of 73 years

 

[Booble]

My pain level IMMEDIATELY dropped to about a 3.

This the the kind of thing where you realize -- holy smokes, it didn't feel like it was "in my head" but it magically started to go away when the doctor said I would be OK. I have had similar situations like that too. I try hard to remember them when I have pain or something else going "wrong" that won't go away.
It's amazing how the pain or whatever can stick around, even though if someone with authority and knowledge said, "oh, that's nothing" and you stopped focusing on it that it might start to go away.