Spring has sprung! And so, inevitably, has the sniffling/sneezing/snorking of the allergy sufferers. Not being able to breathe freely is pretty miserable. The best answers modern medicine has to these respiratory allergies are ‘allergy shots’. Wouldn’t it be neato if a prepper could obtain some of this free-breathing relief offered by allergy shots? Even without access to modern medicine? It might be possible. Or might not. Read on and learn about the connection between allergy shots and homeopathic allergy treatments.
Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to ditch the allergy symptoms, even when the pharmacy was closed?*
Note: I’m not a physician. This isn’t medical advice. These are some ideas based on evidence found in the medical literature. Make your own decisions.
What are allergy shots anyway?
First, about allergies. An allergy is when your immune system gets insanely aggressive about attacking a relatively harmless alien molecule. The immune system doesn’t care about collateral damage. When it attacks so aggressively it produces effects that harm the person. In the respiratory allergies we’re looking at today, the harmful effects are things like congestion, runny nose, sneezing, watery eyes.
Some kinds of allergies, such as those against peanuts and bee stings, produce a much more dangerous set of reactions called anaphylaxis. Here the harmful effects include plummeting blood pressure and respiratory failure. That’s not the kind of thing I’m talking about here. Casually introducing yourself to a molecule that might kill you strikes me as a really dumb thing to do.
Allergies happen in part because the part of the immune system that is supposed to act as the brakes, fails. The attack cells go rabid and the suppression cells go on holiday.
Allergy shots are an attempt to provoke the suppression part of the system into doing its job. The shots introduce frequent, tiny doses of the molecule. Frequent tiny doses that don’t come with danger signals (like damaged tissue) are the best way to increase the suppression part of the immune response.
What is homeopathy?
Homeopathy is an alternative medical practice. It introduces into the patient miniscule doses of the thing thought to be making the person sick; or thought to cause the same sorts of reactions as those making the person sick. Practitioners claim (1) that this will support the body and particularly the immune system in taking care of the threat.
Homeopathy has had some popularity as an alternative medicine approach for a very long time. However, it has seldom shown positive effects when tested in carefully controlled trials. Moreover, it usually makes no physiological sense. For example, A disease might cause a yellow discharge. Drinking tiny amounts of an unrelated yellow substance shouldn’t help that. Because of lack of evidence and lack of theory, I’m not favorably impressed with homeopathy for most applications.
Homeopathy uses regular exposures to very low doses. So do allergy shots.
The connection between homeopathy and allergy shots
Allergy shots are a special case. The standard medical treatment is introducing tiny doses of the alien molecule. And we know why we’re doing it; Because while occasional large doses provoke the attack cells of the immune system. Regular very small doses provoke the suppressing cells. Suppression of the attack is what’s needed in an allergy.
Isopathy is a particular form of homeopathy where the practitioner presents the exact same element that causes the disease. Isopathy for allergy is therefore a heck of a lot like giving allergy shots, in theory. This is what got me wondering if homeopathy might work similarly to allergy shots. So I took a walk through the medical literature to look for evidence.
The evidence for homeopathy working like allergy shots
What I found was … well, Maybe. I read some meta-analyses, where somebody uses some statistical tools to try and sum up a lot of individual research studies. Some of these had authors whose tone led me to think they weren’t fans of homeopathy. They (2) pointed out that few studies were of good design. Of the small number of studies they called good, many showed no clear benefit, but one or two did indicate a benefit that exceeded that of the placebo group. (“Good” as scientists use it at these times means “well designed to reduce bias and produce trustworthy data”.)
Other meta-analyses were written by homeopathy fans.(1) They considered more of the available studies to be good evidence. Clearly they were cherry-picking their evidence. They chose to talk about a relatively small number of good studies. There were good quality studies that showed a reduction of symptoms in the homeopathy group. One (3) found an overall reduction of 50% in the dosages of antihistamines the patients took to control their symptoms.
So does using homeopathy treatments work like allergy shots to make the allergy sufferer less miserable? It looks like Yes. The evidence is not overwhelming. On the other hand, it also has a low risk of causing harm. *If* you’re trying it on the kinds of allergies that don’t cause you really dangerous symptoms in the first place.
How a prepper might use homeopathy as allergy shots
Of course, if we can’t get access to modern medicine, we probably can’t just order homeopathic remedies off the Internet, either. So how is this a practical prep? Keep in mind homeopathy-style allergy treatment is all about introducing regular but tiny doses of the molecule that troubles you.
Homeopathic remedies often start with a ‘mother solution’. For example, 1 part of the flowers of the plant you’re allergic to in 9 parts ethanol would be a mother solution. Vodka or Everclear should do for the ethanol. You’d need something safe to ingestible. Then the mother solution is diluted and shaken like crazy. It’s often diluted a lot. (4)
Dilutions of 3X to 3C were common in these studies. 1 part of your mother solution (10% active ingredient) diluted with another 99 parts more ethanol would be a 3X. For example, 10 drops (from a medicine dropper) of mother added to one of those little ‘shot’ or ‘airplane’ bottles of vodka that hold 50 ml is a 3X. To get a 3C dilution? 2 drops of mother in 10 L of alcohol. Is that enough to do anything at all? Well, could be; the immune system can react to tiny triggers. Some protocols used much greater dilutions, like 30C (3). The dilutions could likely be done with water instead of ethanol.
Remedies were often administered by putting them in nasal spray bottles and having the person sniff them up. If I were doing that I’d be sure I’d just made up any water-based dilutions. I wouldn’t want any funguses or whatever growing in my nasal spray. They wouldn’t grow in mostly alcohol.
A nasal spray bottle like this would be handy if trying this homeopathic approach.
My personal take on homeopathy as allergy shots
I can see where this might work. If I were really troubled by allergies, I might try it. I’d probably dilute it down to the lower end of what most studies I saw used (3C) though. The treatment might trigger an allergic response, after all. No way would I try it with anything that caused anaphylaxis. Traditional homeopathic remedies often use really dilute solutions. But not me. At those dilutions you’re not averaging getting any effective molecules in a dose.
I don’t recommend you do it. I don’t recommend you don’t do it. It’s your call. Another option is symptom treatment. Some ideas for over-the-counter remedies to stock are found here.
References
1) Ullman, D., & Frass, M. (2010). A review of homeopathic research in the treatment of respiratory allergies. Alternative Medicine Review : A Journal of Clinical Therapeutic, 15(1), 48.
2) Banerjee, K., Mathie, R. T., Costelloe, C., & Howick, J. (2017). Homeopathy for allergic rhinitis: A systematic review. The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 23(6), 426-444. doi:10.1089/acm.2016.0310
3) Reilly DT, Taylor MA, McSharry C, Aitchison T. Is homoeopathy a placebo response? Controlled trial of homoeopathic potency, with pollen in hayfever as model. Lancet 1986;2:881-886.
4) Homeopathic dilutions. 2019. https://www.boironusa.com/info/ Boiron U.S.A.
* Thanks for the image to mcfarlandmo [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)]