Here Come the Rains

I knew that as soon as I blogged about the dry autumn, it would change! And here come the rains...
The rainy season in Los Angeles is interesting, in that we have a “rainy season.” As opposed to pretty much the whole rest of the country, where it rains pretty much whenever it wants to, Los Angeles stands alone as one of the few places in the United States where there is a long dry season followed by a short wet one in the winter.
For allergy sufferers, this has several implications, depending on your particular allergy. For those suffering from dust allergies, the long dry months are particularly difficult. However, it is the rainy season, with its accompanying dampness, that affects those suffering from mold.

If you'll notice the Local Pollen Count, it's not even raining. And yet the mold levels have begun to rise in comparison to where they were last week.

Mold is an interesting thing. Brought on by the dampness of a rainy day, the next day's breeze blows it all over the place. Since our homes and offices are fairly airtight, mold blows in when we open the door, and sets up residence.
So what's so bad about mold? Well, nothing—if you're not sensitive to it. On the other hand, inhaling mold spores can cause coughing and allergic asthma to those who are sensitive to it.
What can you do about mold? Pretty much the ONLY thing you can do about mold—aside from clearing your allergy to it—is to keep humidity levels low. You can obtain a dehumidifier (not common in LA but de rigueur in Houston, Texas, where mold grows on the backs of couches and inside pianos in damp houses). And you can be happy that it's only a short season that will end soon...

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Fall, the Perfect Season to Clear Pollen Allergies

Autumn in Los Angeles is a great time to eliminate pollen allergies, especially when it's a warm, dry autumn like we've been experiencing this year.
If you look on the right side of this blog post, you'll notice the Local Pollen Count. It's always easier to clear an allergy that you can avoid, and today, most of the pollens and mold are very low.
This means that if you were to come for a treatment for mold or grass pollen, you probably wouldn't even have to wear a mask for that day.
The key in allergy elimination, as practiced in NAET, is avoidance. For the 25 hours after the treatment, it is crucial that you avoid the allergen to the best of your abilities. This gives your body a chance to detox each organ from the substance. If you are not able to avoid the substance you're clearing—either because it's in the air, always touching you, or within your own body—you can always simply massage your gate points every two hours to get you through the 25-hour avoidance period following the treatment.
And when you clear your pollen and mold allergies this fall, you'll be glad you did when winter and spring roll around...and you'll be the only one NOT sneezing!

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The 25-Hour Avoidance in NAET

After each NAET treatment, you must avoid the allergen treated for the following 25 hours.
Why is this necessary? Why 25 hours? After all, didn't the practitioner just test and determine that I passed the treatment?
To answer to these questions, I must first explain about the Chinese Circadian Clock.
In Chinese Medicine, each internal organ, and its corresponding meridian system, is most active at a particular 2-hour period of time each day. This means that the organ's energy is at its highest during this time period. For instance, the time period of 3-5 am is devoted to the Lungs. 5-7 pm is Kidney time. 1-3 am is Liver time.
Here's a list of each internal organ and its corresponding 2-hour time:
Lung: 3-5am
Large Intestine: 5-7am
Stomach: 7-9am
Spleen: 9-11am
Heart: 11am-1pm
Small Intestine: 1-3pm
Urinary Bladder: 3-5pm
Kidney: 5-7pm
Pericardium: 7-9pm
Triple Burner: 9-11pm
Gall Bladder: 11pm-1am
Liver: 1-3am
The Circadian Clock has many applications in Chinese Medicine, which we won't go into right now. But in NAET, the Clock explains why we need to avoid allergens for 25 hours.
Imagine, for a moment, that you have just had an NAET treatment, and let's say we just treated you for pickles because although you love them, they give you terrible gas. And let's say that your appointment was at 3pm, which means that we actually treated you at about 3:10pm. You walked out of the office at 3:50pm.
3-5pm is Urinary Bladder time, and as such, your bladder was wide awake at the time of the treatment. It's as if your bladder said, “Hey, I got it. I now have a new relationship with pickles.”
However, your Kidneys were not experiencing maximum Qi and blood flow at the time of the treatment, and as such, were they to come into contact with pickles during their 2-hour time period, they may not be able to “hold” the treatment. On the other hand, if you were to completely avoid pickles from 5-7pm when your kidneys were experiencing maximum Qi and blood flow, your kidneys would be able to maintain their new relationship with pickles.
Of course, if you were to repeat your treatment every two hours, you could eat all the pickles you wanted. But then NAET would be very expensive, and nobody would do it...so it's better to just avoid the allergen for 25 hours. Because anybody can do anything for just one day, right?

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How Allergy Elimination Works

Allergy Elimination is real and it works. There are several ways you can do it. Today, I'll be talking about Allergy Elimination as it is done in NAET. NAET is a powerful way to eliminate your allergies to virtually anything. Check it out at www.naet.com, or my website, www.alternativeallergysolutions.com.
In NAET, allergy elimination works by stimulating the spinal nerves. The spinal nerves communicate information from the brain to the internal organs and back to the brain again. When we stimulate these nerves while holding an allergen in our hand, or by maintaining skin-to-skin contact with someone holding an allergen, it changes our relationship with that allergen from a negative to a positive one.
Now I know this is a big mouthful to swallow, and here I'd like to interject the premise that this is NOT Western Medicine by any stretch of the imagination. This is energy medicine, and as such, it cannot be understood through western or scientific means.
When we stimulate the spinal nerves through a vigorous massage, coupled with breathing techniques, what is happening is that we are interrupting the normal flow of information via the nervous system. If you think of the brain as the body's computer, we are basically pressing the “reset” button.
Think of two magnets. If you line them up end-to-end, with the positive and negative poles together, the two magnets attract. If you take the second magnet and flip it around so that the two positive (or two negative) poles are together, they repel each other.
The same thing happens to us with things we're allergic to. It's like we're the first magnet and the allergen is the second magnet. If we have a harmonious relationship with an item, the magnets are lined up +-+-, and the two magnets attract. If it is a disharmonious relationship, the magnets are lined up +--+, and they repel each other.
In NAET, when we stimulate the spinal nerves, the second magnet gets flipped around so that the magnets attract and the relationship changes from a disharmonious one to a harmonious one.

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When Smoke Gets In Your Eyes: Fires in SoCal

There is a reason that I have included the Local Pollen Count on my blog page. Please take a moment to notice that today, under the heading “Air Quality” it says “Unhealthy for Sensitive People,” and under “Primary Pollutant” it says “Particulate matter.”
Attention, Southern California: we have a state of emergency. Please stay in your homes with windows and doors shut.
It may seem pretty obvious, and you may wonder, why is she going on about this? But I would really like to make a solid point here.
If this fire was a simple brush fire, in which trees, grass, and shrubs were burning, I would probably not make such a big deal about it. However, what is burning today are houses. House fires are much more dangerous to all of us, especially those of us with compromised immune systems, because of the toxic content of the smoke.
Houses are constructed to last. There's insulation made of fiberglass, cellulite, vermiculite, polystyrene, and polyurethane. Think burning plastic. There's arsenic-treated 2 X 4's,which frame pretty much each and every house in Southern California. There's sheetrock, which is made of gypsum, fiberglass, plasticizer, potash (a highly toxic and reactive chemical), and EDTA (made from formaldehyde and cyanide). On the sheetrock is housepaint, containing more toxic chemicals. There's carpeting, containing natural and synthetic fibers, including polypropylene, nylon, and other versions of plastic. Then there's siding, which is usually either stucco, a mixture of cement and plaster, or siding, which is usually made of synthetic materials. Of course, the newest siding is insulated, and contains polystyrene foam. And then there's shingles, which are either concrete or plastic, waterproofed red clay, or asphalt, made of fiberglass. And then there's all the stuff that's IN your house...at least half of which is made of plastic.
Can you imagine what we are breathing when we go outside today? It's not just ash from burning trees. It's ash from burning plastic. You might as well light up and smoke a carton of cigarettes.
So the best thing to do today, especially if you have children, or if your immune system is compromised for any reason, is to hop on an airplane and fly up to rural Oregon. Failing that, please stay inside, drink plenty of water, and keep your doors and windows closed until the skies clear, which should be sometime in the next 3 days. And let's all send good energy to our planet—the environmental impact of this catastrophe will probably be felt for a long time.

http://www.quantumlinkwellness.com

The Allergic Continuum

When most people think of allergies, they think of the classic definition, the hypersensitivity reaction. This type of allergy is the kind that shows up in a blood or scratch test at your local MD allergist's office. The blood test or scratch test reveals the presence of IgE, and in some cases, IgG in the body, and determines, in hard scientific fact, that you do indeed have an allergy.
However, this is a very narrow definition of allergies. In fact, hypersensitivity reactions of this sort are only one of five types, the rest referring to autoimmune disorders. Furthermore, the classic and narrow definition of allergies as hypersensitivity reactions don't always answer our questions as to why things make us sick. I'm sure you know people who have had reactions that look like “allergies,” and yet when they go to the allergist and get tested, the results are negative. Or the results are very specific and don't account for all their symptoms. For example, the test may show an allergy to milk and cats, but nothing else. Yet when they eat nightshade vegetables they get bloated and have indigestion. According to the test they are not allergic to potatoes, peppers, or tomatoes.
What's going on here?
The hypersensitivity definition of allergies, as I said before, is a very narrow definition of an allergy. There is a continuum of allergies. On the “weak” end, we have sensitivities: things we are sensitive to, that cause symptoms such as headaches, insomnia, indigestion, gas, body aches, and diarrhea. Since this is not a hypersensitivity reaction, there are no antibodies to the substance, although inflammation, heat, or other symptoms may occur. In the middle of the spectrum are intolerances, things we naturally avoid because they make us feel uncomfortable enough that we have identified them as an inhospitable guest in our system. Intolerances include things that make us sick: seafood that causes vomiting; grass that causes itching; milk that causes painful bloating and constipation. On the “severe” end of the spectrum we find allergies in the classic definition: things to which our body has produced antibodies after our first exposure, and which produce in us moderately serious reactions (swelling, hives, itching, etc). And at the end of the “severe” end is anaphylaxis. Exposure to these items, which our body has identified as severely dangerous, can produce life-threatening reactions or death. These are your peanut, milk, egg, and wheat anaphylaxes.
Just because your MD doctor has tested you by scratch or blood test and has found that you have a specific number of “allergies,” don't assume that's the end of the story. Pay attention to how you feel—after a big meal, after eating sweets, after consuming alcoholic beverages, after exposure to chemicals. Notice when you feel a certain way after being exposed to something...and notice when these reactions happen REPEATEDLY. Does that morning smoothie leave you feeling exhausted and lightheaded? Do you get really bloated after that afternoon Diet Coke...and then absolutely have to have another one? Do your eyes tear incessantly after taking the Tylenol you popped in order to take care of that headache you got after cleaning your bathtub with Comet? Being in tune with your body and what it can—and can't—handle can help keep you in control of your own life.

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Allergies Defined

What are allergies, and how do we get them? Why do some people have them, and others don't?

The technical definition of an allergy is a hypersensitivity reaction, which is exactly what it sounds like. At the time of our first exposure to something that our body identifies as harmful to us, an immune cell called a T(H)2 Lymphocyte interacts with another kind of lymphocyte called a B Cell to produce IgE, which is a type of antibody. The antibody binds to a receptor site. This sets the scene for the subsequent exposure. At our next exposure to the allergen, when the antibody is present at the receptor site, histamines are released, causing the classic allergic reaction: inflammation (swelling) and heat (usually in the form of redness, rash, itching, or warmth in the affected area). This reaction happens because we have become hypersensitive to the allergen.

What about people who have allergies at a very young age? Some people are born with allergies, having inheritied them from their parents. Children of allergy sufferers are often allergy sufferers themselves. Other children seem to "grow out" of their allergies at around 8 or 9 years of age. Actually, hormones mask the symptoms of allergies. These same individuals will probably see a resurgence of their allergies in their 50s or 60s as their hormones wane.

We can also aquire allergies. Allergies are aquired through several mechanisms. When our immune system is compromised--by disease, by stress, by a combination of factors--our body may mistakenly identify a harmless item as harmful. This is why mothers (having undergone a change in their immune system so their body won't reject the fetus, and the subsequent stress of childbirth) often report a newfound inability to digest gluten, the protein in wheat, or dairy products. Similarly, a man who lost his job, got divorced, and endured the tragic loss of his father to a car accident, might suddenly become chemically sensitive. An exposure to toxic chemicals during childhood--carpet cleaning agents, or immunizations, for example--can spawn further allergies to other substances, such as foods or environmental factors.

These are just a few examples of how people become sensitive, intolerant, or allergic. The immune system is a complex and multidimensional aspect of our body, and we are just starting to understand the intricacies of how it works.

So why do some people have allergies and others don't? Some people have great genes. Others have two parents with lots of allergies from whom they inherited their own sensitivities. Some people have little stress in their lives, or have adapted to stress in a positive way. We are all different and unique, which is why, although there are common allergies, anyone can be allergic to anything. It's all about polarity. Either we have a positive relationship with something or a negative one. The most important aspect of ourselves is our own awareness of our limitations and our adaptability.

http://www.quantumlinkwellness.com