A cheap simple home remedy for seasonal allergies

With all the marketing of the latest greatest antihistamines (allegra, zyrtec, etc.), I thought I might share a cheap, simple home remedy for allergy symptoms with you all.  It may sound silly and perhaps a bit obvious, but I swear it has cleared up all my allergy symptoms (for those of you who have read previous posts, that means all the symptoms that still lingered after ditching my oasys contacts).

Ready?

Dress warmer.

I know, it sounds stupid and obvious and perhaps not even applicable, but I have a theory about sneezing that I developed as a result of extensive international and domestic travel in different seasons and still getting the same allergy symptoms of uncontrollable sneezing, runny nose, and misery no matter the locale.  My theory is that big temperature changes in general and big temperature differences on different parts of the body cause me to sneeze.

Starting at around the age of 20 (I’m now 26), I started getting seasonal allergies.  I remember going outside on a warm spring day for a hike with my mom and sneezing so bad that we had to just give up and go back home.  I lived in Japan for a bit, and while there, I had sneezing fits all the time, and antihistamines did only so much.  I’d still get the sneeze fits and the runny nose in the morning and all that misery.  I moved to northern California and still had sneeze fits and runny nose and misery.  I visited New York and had sneeze fits, et. al.  No medicine helped anymore!  Last year, I went on a trip to Italy with my significant other, and I had a sneeze fest there, too.  It was windy everywhere we went, and the air was full of those white tufts that fly around Europe in spring, and I thought that it was dust and pollen and the other cast of characters responsible.  I took some antihistamines there, and that didn’t really provide much relief.  I used the neti pot touted by Oprah and that still didn’t do it.

I finally started thinking about what my parents had told me for my entire life — that putting on warmer clothes stops sneezing.  I learned in elementary school at some point that sneezing was the exclusive domain of allergies, so I never listened when I was younger.  Grown up and at my wit’s end I decided to just dress warmer before going to bed and to keep warm when I got up in the morning.

BOOM.  No sniffling.  No runny nose.  No misery.  No sneezing.  Whoa.  So I’ve applied this to every season and have come in hindsight to realize that the common denominator in my allergy fits in the past were probably a result of under-dressing.  On my trip in Italy, it was fairly warm, but gusts of cold wind kept blowing in on my naked shorts-wearing legs and my t-shirted arms, and I’d start sneezing.  In Japan, in the summer, I’d try to wear as little as possible to keep cool in the humid heat, but I’d sneeze like crazy with big temperature changes (e.g. outdoor to indoor transition and vice versa).  In LA, it was always warm, but you’d be surprised how cool one’s skin gets when it isn’t covered.

These days, I dress warm for bed and warm for the morning, and even if it’s warm outside, I wear pants and long sleeves.  If it’s really warm, I carry around a jacket for the inevitable sneeze fit.  I do a lot of thrift store shopping, and I used to sneeze a lot in those dusty little stores.  Now, as soon as I feel a sneeze coming on, I put on a coat (generally mine, but one off the rack would obviously do just as well!) get warm, and the urge to sneeze disappears. The dust doesn’t even seem to be a factor.  It’s amazing how cold one’s skin gets when it isn’t covered.

I don’t know if this will work for everyone, but it’s worked for me, and this little bit of old folks’ wisdom rings true for me.  I should’ve just listened to my parents!