Streetlife

Would love a miracle cure too... You can get excellent honey at the Honey Shop on Northcote Road in Clapham. They do a specific Hayfever Honey which has a mixture of pollen and other stuff in. And they also sometimes have Wimbledon Honey. Would going there - or give them a call.

Hi Miss Sin, have you tried homeopathy? Despite a lot of people poo-pooing the idea, I tried it last year as I was bothered by hayfever, asthma and some eczema (all related conditions) - I had a course of treatment, and have been amazed by the results: I only used a hayfever nasal spray about 3 times last summer (instead of 2 or 3 times a day!); use of my asthma inhaler has gone down from a few times a week to about once or twice a month. So I'm definitely a happy customer! Happy to give you details of my homeopath if you're interested.

I've also heard that local honey helps as it's made from local pollens - let us know how that goes :)

Take a look at this post from 9 months ago. 

http://www.streetlife.com/4e9abbc2f97ab51dc30008ba/?r

They are local beekepers in Tooting.  You could PM them to see when they'll next have some.

Hi Miss Sin,

I agree with Anja on this one. http://www.thehivehoneyshop.co.uk/ in Northcote Road does a special honey for hayfever sufferers, made of a blend of local honeys mixed with pollen and royal jelly, which boosts your immunity to local pollens.

It's not cheap, however, at £15 for a 280g pot, but i bought 2 pots last year which lasted me all year, and I barely noticed my hayfever after suffering for decades. Much cheaper in the long run than all thos antihistamines!

Anja, Tracey, Ali and Martyn,

Thank you very much for your useful tips. I dont like medicine as such.

I will certainly pay a visit to that shop on Northcote road. THank you.

May I ask you when did you start taking the honey please, and how often?

I have a history of diabetes in my family, so I have to be careful.

With many thanks,

Hi Tracey,

I'm looking for a good reliable homeopath, I'd like to know the name of yours seeing that you have had such good results. A good homeopath is really difficult to find and I know that some have the gift to cure more than others

Cheers.

I can't tell you how much the answers on this thread depress me.  The concept of a "good" or "reliable" homeopath is entirely oxymoronic.

And to suggest that some have the "gift to cure more than others" is genuinely heartbreaking.  None of them have the gift to cure.  It's all complete nonsense invented by a German man in the late 18th century, at a time when it was not understood that all matter is made up of discrete and indivisible molecules, and so people did not realise that beyond a certain level of dilution there is none of the original ingredient left. 

The explanation behind its action were implausible in the 18th century, disproven in the 19th century, laughable in the 20th century and are now just plain dangerous in the 21st century.

Oh and the idea that local unfiltered honey will help hayfever is also nonsense.  See here for a succinct but comprehensive explanation why

I would recommend you talk to a pharmacist.

Matthew, Sure talk to a pharmacist and take those great medicines that have  horrible side effects, you sure are a "modern" thinker.

From your comment it is obvious that you are rather young and have little experience of doctors who have - yes, it's true - the gift to cure. There are people who have this gift; doctors may be highly qualified but without the same percentage of successes than doctors without that qualification but more attuned to their patients.

It is the same in any profession; you don't have have a doctorate to be good at what you do. And FYI homeopathy is practised over the world and is highly respected. If you don't believe in it, too bad, you have every right to cure yourself with official medicine and suffer side effects from the drugs you use, if you don't know that these official drugs are dangerous you have obviously little knowledge of medicine, 

Sorry for not being clearer - I meant that to suggest that some homeopaths have the gift to cure is genuinely heartbreaking.  

Of course there are good doctors and bad doctors, just as in any profession.  That doesn't change the fact that whether they're good, bad or ugly the homeopaths are still peddling snake oil, which for a condition like hayfever is no worse than conning gullible people out of their money, but for more serious illnesses (Tracey mentions asthma which can be life-threatening) it is recklessly dangerous that a homeopath might advocate taking empty sugar pills instead of a proven treatment.

I'm not sure what horrible side-effects you are talking about.  Last time I took some antihistamines the only effect I noticed was that my nose was less blocked up.  Yes, sure, chemotherapy drugs are pretty unpleasant and have nasty side effects, but the people who take them consider that an acceptable price to pay for having the best chance of surviving cancer.  And medical science is ceaselessly working to improve such medicines.  

Homeopathy on the other hand really hasn't changed at all since some German guy dreamt it up one afternoon in the late 18th century.  Since that date you can thank mainstream medical science for almost single-handedly doubling your life expectancy to what it is today.  From your claim that it is "obvious that I am rather young", I will infer that you are "rather old", so it's reasonably likely that the reason you have managed to remain alive long enough to write your messages on this thread is because of the advances of modern science.

And FYI trepanning, bloodletting, the miasma theory of disease, flat-earthism, the geocentric model of the solar system and the 6 day creation myth were all practised and believed all over the world at one point or another.  It doesn't make any of them any less wrong.

Time for Tim again perhaps?

If you are going for the honey remedy please be aware...the theory is that most probably you are affected by a plant close to where you live and if you were to eat LOCAL honey all year from LOCAL bees that may visit that plant you will have small doses of the pollen through out the year thus enabling your body to prepare for the main event...I wish you well but you may find taking any thing but very local honey and only when the main event has arrived will be to late....good luck any way..I too suffer and find a trip to the sea side a great form of relief..

P.S. the "HayfeGuard" website (the pollen-containing honey sold by the hive honey shop mentioned above) says the following on its front page (direct quote):

Disclaimer: This is a food product, not a medicine or nutritional supplement which are not meant to treat, heal or cure any disease. HayfeGuard provides a natural wholesome food product. We always advise a sensible well rounded diet, rich in nutrients and we do not intend to imply that its products will cure any disease.

Says it all really: the makers of this product cannot in any way demonstrate that their product has any curative effect whatsoever.

Matthew, monothought people like you are irksome.  Let people choose their own ways.  You go the pharma way if you like but allow others to choose their own options.  Your way is not the only true way.

Caroline are you saying Mathew G  is IRKSOME? Do we have STORM Syndrome again? I think we should be told!

Life's too short so I'll sidestep the negative comments.

The only thing I've found that works for me is to line the inside of my nose with Vaseline first thing in the morning. This acts ss a blocker and the science, you'll be pleased to know is unquestionable

Matthew, I take your points, however different remedies work for different people and all that really matters is that people are less bothered by their symptoms no matter what the method. You know the placebo effect? What's wrong with it if people are alleviated from their symptoms?? I used to be quite opinionated myself, but actually those types of opinions are best kept to yourself and people can learn for themselves because we are all individuals and different things work for different people.

Miss Sin, as a fellow sufferer - I wish you luck! I haven't found anything that helps mine (not even antihistamines) and last year signed up to do a hayfever study with a drug that's already been approved, but very expensive through the NHS so I really hope it works!

I love the debate on alternative and complimentary therapies. Working in the field, my opinions have changed from being sceptical about them all to now realising the benefit of a wide variety of things. I had glandular fever when I was 16 and was sent to the local homeopath and told to take some of these sugar pills. I had not much faith in them at the time, but I got better soon after taking them. So who knows? I wonder how these people manage to make a living if they don't work? That's the hard facts of it, it's tough working in this area already, if you then aren't helping people you really won't last. So why has this treatment lasted? Why are there still so many therapists practicing?
Having witnessed and experienced things that I would never have thought possible I have definitely become more open to trying anything to see if it works. I wish the cynics well and understand their need for hard factual evidence based therapies. Sometimes these just haven't had the funding to get that evidence. And sometimes 'healing' is encouraged by a practitioner and when you witness that with your own eyes you realise how lucky we are. But it is our own bodies and more importantly brains that heal ourselves. Everyone else just facilitates that process.

Sarah I disagree with your statement "all that really matters is that people are less bothered by their symptoms".  What really matters is that the actual symptoms are reduced.

See http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/07/dangerous_placebo_medicine_in_asthma.php for an excellent discussion on how those two things can be extremely far apart.

In the case of hayfever, or the common cold, where the only impact on the sufferer is mild irritation, I can see that anything which reduces perceived discomfort is a good thing.  But asthma kills over 1000 people in the UK every year.  Asthma sufferers need to be taking medicines which actually improve their lung function, not potions which make them believe that their lung function is improved.

All that really matter is that the patient has the right to choose.

I am almost 60 and have been a lifelong hay fever sufferer and prone to sinus infections.  When hay fever or an infection strikes, I am like Niagara Falls for two days.  Complete misery.  I have tried all sorts of remedies, avoiding mucous forming dairy products, not drinking red wine because of the histamines in red wine during hay fever season, local honey (but what do you do when you go a few miles away from the local pollen?), birch tree sap (same mithradatic concept as local honey) and even vaseline in the nasal passage which stops some of the pollen but doesn't stop the itchy eyes.  None of it worked for me.
The only real non-pharma cure has been to take a diving holiday to Egypt for two weeks.  Another is wearing my cycling mask which filters the pollen but short of that, my doctor gave me a prescription for Flixonase nasal spray and fexofenadine hydrochloride tablets.  I have not experience any side effects such as drowsiness as with most antihistamines and the two drugs have nothing been short of miraculous for me.
I know most people would rather have a non-drug cure and it may work for people with milder symptoms but sometimes modern medicine is the only answer as in my case and in a few more months, I'll turn 60 and I'll get my prescriptions free!  My OAP bus pass is another issue, falling the way of governments cuts :-(  I'll have to wait unitl 65 for that one..., if not longer.
My sympathies to all hay fever sufferers and wish everyone luck in finding relief.  Horrible that when spring finally arrives with all its beauty and warmth, it also brings a bit of dread.

This is such an interesting discussion. I too have been affected by hayfever ever since I can remember to the point of trying to figure out where to move to (in the whole wide world) to avoid it! 

Antihistamines seem to take the edge off but it is definitely still there. I've done the acupuncture, homeopathy, reflexology, diet... and am going to try homeopathy again. The Hayfeguard seemed to help for a little while and as I like honey I will use it again. 

To that I would like to add that most "natural" remedies are food supplements. The costs of labelling a product as a supplement are extremely high and most non-pharmaceutical companies can not afford to register their products as such. It is also illegal to claim to cure anything which is why there is such a statement on the hayfeguards website. Not because it might not work or because it may. The legislation for any kind of complementary and integrated health care is very very strict. No one can claim to cure anything unless they have scientific proof.

Like mandmassage I too am in the complementary field (yoga and ayurveda) now with a science degree so have read and critiqued research for both complementary and pharmaceuticals and having had this introduction to reading research I am very sceptical to all claims!

Keep the options open and see what works for the individual. We are all different and we all need different adjustments in our life to find some sort of balance.

Keep the suggestions coming...

Anja you say "The costs of labelling a product as a supplement are extremely high and most non-pharmaceutical companies can not afford to register their products as such".  But have you considered why the pharmaceutical companies can afford it, and the non-pharmaceutical companies can't?

Simple: it's because the pharmaceutical companies' products actually work, so they can raise finance from investors to fund their research and development costs based on the likely future revenue stream from the drug.

If pollen infused honey actually treated hayfever then by now it would be a multi-billion dollar product and funding for clinical trials and regulatory approvals would have been trivially easy to come by.

At the beginning of this thread, Tracy R posted a recommendation for a homeopathic treatment that - she said - worked for her.  It actually worked for her.  She said so.  Now Matthew G will say that it was all placebo effect but it worked for her.  Perhaps, instead of dismissing it, we should be looking at the placebo effect and wondering if all our diseases are always rooted in the physical: and whether, in fact, we need synthetic substances stuffed into us without any other consideration.

Look at Chinese medicine, for example.  The best part of 3000 years have produced a complex medicine based largely on subtle energies and herbal preparations.  Matthew G will dismiss that with a snort as primitive ethnic barbarism but he cannot deny that Chinese people seem, in the main, to be a remarkably healthy population.

It is easy to enter a monothought world and to think there is one answer for everything: that answer being in one's own head.

Mathew G your cynism is unbecoming! It has in fact undone you.  Aspirin is a natural remedy so are all the most effective painkillers (opiatesand cocaine) Big pharma does fund research but only when it can secure a patent and intellectual property  rights. It can only patent an 'original idea'  So a lot of existing remedies which have been around for yonks cannot be patented.  The reason aspirin and the other natural remedies are still produced is that they work better than anything synthetic.

Caroline there is more in healthy living than can be proven. I think Ayuveda is an example of this The Indian Goverment runs Ayuvedic pharmacies all over India because it is an integrated system of health care which takes care of much illness that would otherwise clog up precious 'western medicine' facilities. 

rotfl

Caroline sorry but I can't resist the opportunity to dismantle your nonsense point by point.

1. Tracey saying it worked for her, and it actually working for her, are different things.  She is talking about asthma, where it is well established that sufferers are generally not able to accurately judge their own Peak Expiratory Flow Rate (which I believe is one of the standard measures of severity) except when they are suffering severe attacks.  So while Tracey believes it has made her asthma better, it has quite probably just made her think that it's better.  This is really dangerous; it could easily lead to an asthmatic ceasing to carry their inhaler with them and as a result suffering a fatal attack.  I wonder if her homeopath measures uses a Peak Flow Rate meter during their consultations in order to verify that the homeopathic treatment is having the important physical effect.

2. What, other than the physical, do you suggest that diseases might be rooted in?  I'm pretty sure that heart disease, and cancer, and meningitis, are all caused by erm, physical things.  Most of this thread is about hayfever, which I hope we can all agree is caused by pollen and other airborne allergens.  These are physical objects which have a physical effect on the physical linings of your physical nose and cause a physical reaction which physically constricts the airways and/or results in the physical emissions of physical mucous.

3. What is this irrational obsession with "synthetic" substances being somehow evil?  Everything (literally everything on and in this planet) was manufactured inside a long-extinct star billions of years ago - it all comes from the same place.  How is aspirin (which is derived from a willow tree bark extract) worse than say a homeopathic remedy made out of a badger which had been hit by a car (yes, really, this is not a joke!) or arsenic.  And more to the point why should a plant have evolved to produce a completely safe and side-effect free treatment for human respiratory irritations?  What's in it for the plant?

4. Why does the fact that something is 3000 years old and/or complex make it necessarily good?  The Chinese also believed that the earth was flat for well over 3000 years, but that doesn't make it true.  And all the parts of Chinese herbal medicine which have turned out to actually work have since become... medicine

5. Your comment about the "remarkable health" of the Chinese is fatuous and laughable.  To me the Chinese people seem, in the main, to be about 5000 miles away and I have never met any of them, let alone discussed their health.  However life expectancy in China is significantly lower than in any Western European country, (and in modern China only around 30% of medical treatment involves traditional herbal remedies in any case) so yes I would definitely deny your claim about their health.

It is easy to enter a wiffly-waffly mother-earth world and think that there are many answers for everything: those answers being in whatever pretty lifestyle supplement / website / fad book you happen to be reading.

Hay Fever remedy:

As a lifelong sufferer, what works for me is:

• Reduce or eliminate dairy products
• Reduce or elminate as much wheat as you can
• Daily non-prescription antihistamine Loratadine
• Don't dry bedding or clothes outside
• Leave the UK for as much of peak season (mine is April - end of June) as possible.
• Keep windows shut at night/early morning