Ancient Chinese doctors knew about allergies, and passed this knowledge to future acupuncturists.
They noticed that when spring came, some people would have problems like skin rashes, sneezing, itching, runny nose, watery eyes, etc. In general, these complaints would come and go very fast just like the wind. During that time, scientists considered spring to be the wind season. Therefore, combining the factor of the time (season) and characteristics of the complaint – coming and going as fast as the wind – they named this kind of problem: wind type or wind like problems.
Although the liver is usually associated with wind problems, in this case the lungs are actually the organ related to the wind, because the material we are allergic to bothers us mainly through either the skin, nose, and sometimes the eyes. In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) acupuncture system, the lungs are a combination of nose, bronchial, skin, hair, partially circulatory system, partially the immune system, partially the metabolic system and the lungs themselves.
This TCM and acupuncture system was formed about 2,000 years ago and has been a key player in Modern Chinese disease prevention medicine. Nowadays, it is spreading worldwide more and more because of its effectiveness and good results through a natural way. In recent years, much more scientific research has proven that TCM and acupuncture can regulate and improve immuno function in both cellular immunity and humoral immunity. Most importantly, scientists also found they have what is called “both direction regulation,” which means if anything in the body is “higher than normal” then TCM and acupuncture can lower it until it is back to normal, vise versa.
Clinically, for patients with allergies, the common pattern could be “wind cold” sometimes combined with Qi deficiency. For “wind cold,” the complaints will be: feeling cold easily, allergies accompanied with chills, clear watery mucous from nose, sneezing, watery eyes without swelling, becoming worse in the morning or when the environment is colder. For “wind cold and Qi deficiency,” patients usually complain about tiredness and catching a cold easily and the allergy will get worse or onset more often when getting too tired, these happen simultaneously with the symptoms mentioned earlier. Of course, there are some other uncommon types too, such as “wind with poor circulation,” “wind heat,” etc. which we will not go into detail in this article.
Treatment
The treatment involves a diet change, acupuncture, and herbs if you want a quick relief. For the diet change everyone is different, it would be a good idea to talk about this face to face with the acupuncturist, but one thing is for sure: adding more fresh ginger root juice and mung bean in your diet, avoid the cold stuff are always a good idea. For TCM and acupuncture treatment, it completely depends on the patterns that you have. The acupuncture needle could go on the face, extremities, back, stomach, depending on the situation. At times, TDP and cups need to be involved as well. However, for a few people electrical acupuncture may be better. In terms of herbs, it is more complicated, you would need to speak face to face with an acupuncturist. We started to see seasonal allergy patients in the U.S. in 1995. So far, we have helped many sufferers. For most people, after treatment they will not need to come back. We followed up with patients for five years and there was still no need for them to come back.