Allergies and Treatments

Allergies and Learning Issues

Allergies can affect virtually every part of the body:  every organ, every system, every hormone, every acid and base.   Allergies are your body’s own defenses gone terribly wrong.  They are the result of your immune system attacking an everyday substance like it is a harmful poison.  

Allergies have an enormous impact on the brain and central nervous system and can cause huge disruptions in the way these systems develop.  There is a very real and strong relationship between allergies and Autism, Dyslexia, Sensory Intergration Dysfunction, Fatigue, Hyperactivity, Behavior issues, Emotional problems and the list goes on.   Medical definitions of ADD and Autism often list allergies as a trait in these children and list a history of autoimmune (allergy based) disease in the family such as Thyroid or Diabetes, but they have not made the leap to connect them directly.   Many of our children are diagnosed with Autism, ADHD, NLD, Dyslexia, Depression, Colic, Asthma and Ear infections yet very few doctors are telling us to test and treat allergies!

Types/Symptons of Allergies

You can be allergic to foods including additives, preservatives, vitamins and minerals, environmental elements including everything from pollens to plastics, and to your own body’s hormones, proteins and chemicals.   The symptoms can be food cravings, aches and pains, concentration, learning difficulties, anxiety, fatigue, depression, mood swings, constipation, diarrhea, nausea, restlessness, weakness, hyperactivity, low muscle tone, behavioral outbursts and many more.  Some of the most common allergies are dust, molds, pollens and foods like milk, sugar, and wheat which also correspond to what our kids eat most on a daily basis.

Stress and Allergies

Today our hectic lives are full of stress as we try to balance work and home life and school work.   The stress of a school day on a child with learning disabilities can be enormous.  There is a strong connection between this stress and fatigue, headaches, hyperactivity and an endless list of symptoms.  Stress often makes many allergy related symptoms appear or worsen and may work in combination to put our bodies over the edge they may be teetering on.  When we are under stress is also when allergies tend to develop and you can actually accumulate more allergies in times of stress as your body’s immune system goes into overdrive trying to fight against foreign invaders.   If we learn how to stay calm and focused, this will help us reduce stress and keep many of our symptoms at bay.  Things like physical exercise, meditation, yoga and relaxation exercises worked into our everyday lives will improve our physical and mental health.


Allergy Treatment

Traditional Treatments such as shots, antihistamines, and abstinence from the offending substance may be effective in some cases, but usually do not help the severely allergic or those who are allergic to many things.  Until recent years, these were your only options.  Now becoming more available are treatments called “energy therapies” which use your bodies on energy to test and treat for allergies.  Two of these energy therapies are described in the following paragraphs.

NAET & JMT
Nambudiprad Allergy Elimination Technique (NAET) & Jaffe-Mellor Technique (JMT)

NAET and JMT both utilize applied kinesiology (muscle testing), Chinese acupuncture and chiropractic approaches to diagnose and treat allergies.   Both methods use a methodology that requires you to be tested and treated for a foundation list of elements including such things as vitamins, minerals, salts, sugars, eggs, grains and dairy.   Once these allergies have been treated, then you can go on to address other foods or pollens and so forth.

Allergy Testing

In both JMT and NAET, muscle testing is used to test for allergies.   Different from a traditional scratch test, that purely looks for a histamine response (usually causing nasal/respiratory symptoms).  Muscle testing goes deeper to find substances that cause your body to weaken or lose energy.  Thus, enabling a practitioner to detect substances, that could be causing more subtle symptoms like headaches or hyperactivity.   During the testing, you will be asked to hold a substance (in a diluted form) in one hand while you hold your other arm tight.  If you are allergic, your arm muscle will weaken and yield to often gentle pressure applied by the practitioner.   This weakening indicates that substance is causing some harm to your body.   Although highly accurate, muscle testing is not as accurate as the blood tests, but does offer other advantages.  Virtually anything can be tested.  Anything you can bring to your practitioner can be tested such as medications you are currently taking, flowers from your garden, a soap or perfume.  In most cases, your practitioner will have a very large library of substances to test on hand.  They can test things like many foods as well as proteins, vitamins, minerals and amino acids, pollens, dust, mold, plastic and even hormones and insulin.   They can also test for reactions to things like the MMR and other vaccines some have related to Autism.  Muscle testing can be done for considerably less money then laboratory testing and results are immediate.

Treatment Apointments

The treatments consist of stimulating acupressure points along the spine to keep energy flowing in the body while in the presence of an allergen.   It feels like a deep/proprioceptive taping that many people may find relaxing.  This stimulation retrains the body not to respond and weaken when exposed to an offending substance.  So it does not “cure” allergies in that they will always be there if a blood test is taken, but rather retrains your body to ignore the allergen eliminating the reaction.

The average person will require 15 visits more or less depending on the number of allergies to clear.  Most people have more allergies then they know about.  These are often called hidden allergies as their symptoms are mild or they do not occur until a day or more after exposure. 

JMT is more efficient then NAET in that it treats more allergies in a single visit.  JMT also differs in that it does not require a 24 hour avoidance period in which you cannot come in contact with the treated substance for 24 hours.  This can be difficult for common things like dust or sugar.
 
Children tend to have fewer allergies and clear more easily then adults.   Babies and small children can also be treated through the use of a surrogate.  This is when an adult is tested and treated while holding the hand of the child.  The energy and treatment flows through the adult's body to the child.

Here is a link to a sample practice in Texas that offers NAET services:

Looking for a provider

Be forewarned that all allergy practitioners are not equal.  Ask specifically for NAET or JMT and make sure their training is up to date and they are using the latest and most effective techniques.  Ask if they have experience in treating your particular ailments.  Be wary of practitioners that can only test or treat one allergy at a time, that do not use the foundation list, or require you to avoid contact from the allergen for 24 hours.  These restrictions are not required for the latest allergy elimination techniques and may cost you more time and money as they require more visits.  Practitioners of allergy elimination often have different backgrounds, skill sets and training.  If your insurance covers services from a Chiropractor or Acupuncturist, you may choose to be treated by such a person to get the treatment paid for by your insurance.

The following links will help you find a practitioner in your area:

www.naet.com

www.jmt-jafmeltechnique.com
 

Allergy Blood Testing

Although your pediatrician or general practitioner may not offer the latest in allergy testing, there are some high tech alternatives to the traditional histamine allergy tests.  These tests targets not only likely causes of immediate (IgE) allergic reactions, but also possible sources of delayed (IgC) reactions – the so-called "hidden allergies".  The ELISA technology uses state-of-the-art the Comprehensive Antibody Assessment that identifies hypersensitivities to over 120 of the most commonly encountered types of food and environmental substances.


Great Smokey Diagnostic laboratories 

York Nutritional Laboratories  

Food Allergy Solutions

Although these tests are extremely accurate, you are limited to testing what is offered by the particular test and these methods are expensive costing hundreds of dollars and not always covered by insurance.  They require blood to be drawn which may be difficult for some children.  The tests in themselves offer no immediate solution other than abstinence or a rotation diet.

For information on 504 accomadation plan, see our webpage.
We  would like to acknowledge Maria Tinglof for creating this webpage in  March, revised in September 2004, v5

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