Welcome back to
Active Life Health Clinic's April  Newsletter.

Say Adieu to Your Achoo!

April's showers bring May's flowers. But in Vancouver the flowers are already here and already causing many of you to sniffle and sneeze. Read on about how TCM can help manage your allergies.

Another thing that happens in April is Earth Day. April 22nd is the big day, so what are you going to do to show you care about our great Mother Earth? This month is your chance to buy a Green Zebra Guide at my clinic for only $15 instead of $20 with all proceeds going to Beauty Night Society to help Vancouver women and youth in poverty . Get your book that saves you 20% at Greens grocery store, $20 off at the Fish House in Stanley Park, 10% off at Choices, 20% off at Ten Thousand Villages, up to $180 at Semperviva, up to 50% off at Cliffhanger, $50 off at Hollyhock, 15% off at Banyen Books, and much more...

And, if you have been thinking it's time to do a spring cleanse, stay tuned! I will be hosting a lecture on either May 11th or 12th. Chef Luisa and I will be speaking again about ways to make a detoxification plan easier, more effective, and believe it or not, yummier! Even if you can't make it to the lecture, you can receive our tips about healthy eating and living. Contact me if you want to learn more.

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Helping you help yourself!! My goal: To work in partnership with you to bring you to your optimal health. My focus: Ongoing health, not just temporary relief.       This is active health.

Are you happy to see the flowers? Do you look forward to spring? Do you breathe in deeply with a smile on your face when you step outside?

Or do you rub your itchy, red eyes, stifle a sneeze, bring a tissue to your runny nose, pop a lozenge for your scratchy throat, and hope for a rainy day?

If you suffer from allergies, spring may not be your favourite season. I’ve been there. I remember walking to work barely able to see through my puffy watery eyes. I remember stuffing tissues into every pocket and up every sleeve, just in case.

No longer.

Did you know that just as you can acquire an allergy, you can also lose allergies?

Traditional Chinese Medicine has the tools to make that change. The first step is to determine where your body went off track. A consultation would include questions about your specific symptoms—is your problem more runny nose or itchy eyes? Do you have any food allergies or sensitivities? How long have you had seasonal allergies? What do you eat? Do you sleep well? How’s your digestion? Do you get sick often? And so on.

Once your TCM diagnosis is established, a treatment plan is created and may include herbs, acupuncture, biopuncture, nutritional guidance, and/or supplements.

My patients who had a few treatments last fall for their spring allergies  are now doing much better than the average sniffling bear.

What have we been doing? In the spring we treat the "branch" and the "root", i.e. the symptoms and the cause. Runny or stuffy nose? Herbs like xi xin can help clear the sinuses. My favourite acupuncture points, LI20 (beside the nostrils), are an almost sure-fire way to open up the nasal passages. In the fall, we treat one of the main "roots", the Lung system. We strengthen or clear the Lungs, depending on the patient, with herbs like huang qi or huang qin. We acupuncture the Lung channel. I have my patients practice breathing exercises. I may also suggest other supplements like phytosterols to modulate the immune system. And of course it's important to look at the diet. Are there foods that are further aggravating a person's immune system? Foods that the patient is allergic or sensitive to? Let's substitute in different foods that support the body.

Did you know that one theory about allergies is called "Total Load"? Let's say that you have an allergy to gluten or milk, but with just the food alone you have no obvious symptoms. Then you add in grass and kaboom...allergies. Since you can't necessarily avoid grass, you can avoid the foods to lessen the total load and eliminate or limit your allergic response.

Need more help? A study in Allergy had 52 patients with allergic rhinitis randomly assigned to receive acupuncture and Chinese herbs or sham acupuncture (fake acupuncture) and fake herbs for six weeks. Almost 85% of those receiving the real treatment had a full improvement in their allergy symptoms versus only 40% improvement in those with the placebo treatment.

It’s not too late. If you have allergies, whether to spring seasonal elements or to cats and dogs, dust, foods, or other, you don’t have to suffer.