How do Chiropractors Help with Allergies?

Does the sight of spring flowers blooming or autumn leave falling fill you with dread? Allergies can be seasonal or more pervasive, filling your heart with dread and your head with congestion. Before you reach for an over-the-counter medication that will leave you groggy or prescription medication with nasty side effects, find out how a chiropractor might be the answer to all your questions.

What are Allergies?

Essentially, allergies are the result of your immune system working overtime to keep damaging and harmful substances out of your body via coughing, inflammation and even vomiting, in some cases. For some patients, the immune system is triggered by a normally innocuous substance, which is generally harmless to much of the population. When you come into contact with substances your body deems harmful, histamines are released in order to spur your body to remove what it perceives to be harmful contaminants.

Despite vast amounts of research, scientists still aren’t entirely sure why some people develop allergies to harmless, everyday substances. What they have determined, though, is that stress likely plays a strong role in these reactions. There’s also a strong connection between the nervous and immune systems, which means that interference along the spinal cord could cause an uptick in allergic symptoms during times of stress, or when subluxations are present.

How Can a Chiropractor Treat Allergies?

If the first thing that comes to mind when you think of a chiropractor is popping and cracking for relief from back pain, you’re not alone. It’s a commonly held misconception that chiropractors only treat back pain; the truth is, they complete as many classrooms and residency hours as a medical doctor with a focus on the impact poor spinal health can have throughout the body.

When the vertebrae of the spine are misaligned, they can actively impede pathways of communication by interfering with nerve fibers responsible for relaying information to various systems of the body. When the information can’t be relayed due to this interference, the central nervous system reacts to an aberrant signal and responds accordingly.

Working with a chiropractor to address allergies can, for many patients, provide significant relief from their symptoms without prescription medication, invasive procedures or allergy shots. The body is treated with conservative, non-invasive and safe techniques designed to optimize spine health with the aim of supporting whole-body wellness. Adjustments, spinal manipulation, and other targeted chiropractic therapies can clear the way for your nervous and immune systems to communicate effectively when they’re part of an overall treatment planned based on the specific needs of your unique body, and they don’t come with unpleasant side effects or grogginess.

Because chiropractic care is conservative and low-risk, it’s an ideal solution for many patients who are not responding to other forms of treatment, or those who prefer to forgo medications in pursuit of a more natural treatment path. A customized treatment plan may also include dietary advice, supplements, and other lifestyle adjustments that support better outcomes and more consistent relief from allergic reactions.