Improving Your Allergies With Chiropractic Treatment

When your body is injured by toxins, trauma, bacteria, etc., your body provides an inflammatory response. For instance, damaged cells may release chemicals, like histamine, as a defense mechanism.

Unfortunately, people with allergies tend to have too much inflammation in their bodies since innocuous allergens in the environment continually trigger the body's defense mechanisms.

This chronic inflammation can lead to not only allergic reactions, like anaphylactic shock, but also to an increased risk in autoimmune disorders like lupus or rheumatoid arthritis. In fact, chronic inflammation has even been linked to heart disease.

Thankfully, you can reduce this inflammation with the help of a chiropractor.

The spinal cord contains the nerve pathways for messages to be sent from the brain to the body. And since the nervous system and immune system are linked, if there is nerve impingement or interference, then your immune system may struggle.

A chiropractor can adjust your spine so that your nervous system works at its optimal level; and then, your immune responses to allergens can improve as well.

Besides improving nerve pathways, here are just a few ways that chiropractic adjustments can help improve your allergy symptoms.

If you struggle with respiratory symptoms, like allergen-induced asthma, a chiropractor could help you improve your lung capacity. When there are misalignments in the spine, your chest may feel tight. But when your spine is adjusted properly, you may feel increased flexibility in the muscles in the upper back, neck, chest, and ribs - all of which are involved in breathing mechanics.

A lot of people with allergies have weak adrenal glands. These glands release hormones to manage stress and maintain cortisol levels. These hormones also have strong anti-inflammatory properties. You may feel fatigued and get sick often if your adrenals don't work well.

The adrenal glands have a direct connection to spinal nerves. When your chiropractor adjusts your spine, then the signals between the adrenal glands and the rest of the body can improve.

While a chiropractic adjustment can help you manage allergy symptoms, some patients want to take it a step further and develop a better tolerance to allergens. You could go to your doctor for allergy shots to improve your symptoms, or you can look into Nambudripad's Allergy Elimination Techniques (NAET). Although NAET is not a cure-all, one study found that it was able to treat food allergies enough for a patient to reincorporate these items back into her diet without symptoms.

NAET is a drug-free, non-invasive modality that your chiropractor can use to improve your tolerance to allergens. During NAET sessions, your doctor will combine kinesiology, nutrition, and acupuncture or acupressure.

Kinesiology tests will show the relative strength of your muscles (also called neuro-muscular sensitivity testing) when exposed to certain allergens. If muscles have a weak response, then a chiropractor can narrow down allergen triggers to work on.

Once muscles have been tested, your chiropractor can use acupressure points to improve the body's immune response and improve messenger hormones. Your doctor may also put you on a special diet to reduce your inflammatory response and improve your gut health.

You may need more than one treatment session, but the goal of NAET is to not only identify very specific triggers but to improve your overall health so you can combat these allergens. 

Contact us at Davison Chiropractic to learn more about NAET and other treatments that can help your allergies.