Treat hay fever naturally with these 4 remarkable remedies

Topics covered

• What causes hay fever?
• 4 Remedies to treat hay fever naturally
• Vitamin C and Zinc
• Quercetin
• Low histamine diet
• Look into your gut health
• In Summary

Has hay fever got you down this season? Constant sneezing, runny nose, or itchy eyes? It’s been a bad season for hay fever suffers this year, to say the least. Whilst over the counter oral antihistamines, eye drops and nasal sprays can be effective at reducing the severity of your symptoms, have you ever thought that you can potentially treat the root cause of the allergy to get long-lasting relief? This blog looks at how you can treat hay fever naturally with these 4 remedies that may help reduce or help manage your symptoms over the season.

What causes hay fever?

Before we look at the natural remedies, let’s have a look at what causes hay fever. Although the symptoms you are suffering from may be similar to a cold, hay fever is not caused by a virus.

Hay fever or allergic rhinitis is caused by the immune system responding to environmental allergens such as dust, pollen, mould, and animal hair that come into contact with your eyes, nose or throat. Even though these are harmless substances to the average person, in some people the immune system responds as if they are major threats and produces antibodies in response to this.

These antibodies then enter the bloodstream and can cause a chemical called histamine to be released, which causes inflammation and this is what causes the symptoms that you may experience.

4 remedies to treat hay fever naturally

Now let’s have a look at how you can treat hay fever naturally with our 4 go to remedies. These remedies can help reduce and manage your hay fever symptoms, or get rid of them for good!

Vitamin C and Zinc

You may have heard that these two nutrients are important for immune function, and that would be correct. Vitamin C is a potent antioxidant and natural antihistamine that can reduce oxidative stress in the body.

Zinc is also an important mineral to support the immune system and assist with healing. As it is the immune system that triggers histamine responses that causes allergy symptoms, supporting the immune system can assist in alleviating these symptoms.

You can get a combination of Vitamin C and Zinc together quite easily in most health food shops or pharmacies in powder, tablet or chewable forms. 

Quercetin 

Quercetin has a solid body of evidence behind it to support allergy symptom relief. Quercetin is a plant polyphenol, and in the human body, it acts as an antioxidant and natural anti-inflammatory.

It assists with mast cell stabilisation, and mast cells are involved with the body’s immune function. This stabilisation helps to inhibit the release of the histamines into the bloodstream that we were speaking about earlier. Therefore, this can help reduce your hay fever symptoms.

Low histamine diet

Have you ever considered that what you are eating may be triggering your allergy symptoms?

Some foods such as bananas, strawberries, spinach, tomatoes, avocado and chickpeas to name a few are known as high histamine foods. These can be naturally occurring in histamines, or they can trigger a histamine release in the body.

By following a low histamine diet (eating only foods that do not contain high levels of histamines) there will usually be a reduction in inflammation that can be caused by high histamine levels. This can also support the immune system.

It is important to do this alongside a health professional such as a Nutritionist, as it does involve eliminating large groups of otherwise healthy foods for a period before reintroducing them and doing this diet inefficiently can cause nutrient and energy deficiencies. 

Look into your gut health

As with most things, the gut may play a role in the severity of your allergy symptoms. The bacteria that live in our gut are a very important component of the immune system, so supporting our digestive health and feeding these bacteria is critical.

Taking a probiotic with the strains Lactobacillus Rhamnosus (LGG) and Lactobacillus Paracasei (LP-33) have some emerging research to show they can help reduce the occurrence of allergy symptoms.

However, to gain the benefits of taking any probiotic, you should consume a variety of plant foods to feed these bacteria and allow them to thrive. 

In summary

So there you have it, 4 holistic remedies to help treat hay fever naturally. Obviously, these are only 4 of many natural remedies out there that could help you manage your allergies, so talking to an integrative health professional for an individual approach is recommended.