Some of the links in this post may contain affiliate links for your convenience. As an Amazon Associate, I may earn a small commission from qualifying purchases without any increase in price to you.
My seasonal allergies have been killing me! As I told my friends, I’ve blown my nose so often this past month that I feel like I’m going to blow out my brains! It’s horticultural homicide! My younger son has them as well, just far milder symptoms.
At this point, I am willing to try just about anything, and I really would prefer some herbal hay fever remedies. There are more possibilities out there, but these are the ones I have tried.
Raw, local honey
In past years, I have eaten crackers with brie and raw, local honey to help with seasonal allergies. The general idea is that the pollen enters your system through the honey and your body is better able to deal with it. that means that if the pollens you are allergic to are ones bees don’t visit much, honey won’t help much.
It also means that non-local honey won’t help because the pollens will be different. The general guidelines I’ve heard is that the honey needs to be from within 50 miles of where you live, but closer is definitely better. Treated honey has lost many of its healing properties, so stick with raw honey.
This definitely seems to help me, but I know other people who see no improvement with it. This is one remedy that needs taken in advance to head off a problem. Once the pollen is out, it’s seems like it too late because the honey takes time to work.
In the interest of full disclosure, at least one study shows that local honey does not help allergies. Since studies can be wrong, and at least one unpublished study shows benefits, I will continue to use it.
Neti pot
Friends and family have recommended neti pots, but I never tried them before this year. Basically, you pour water in one nostril and it flows through your sinuses and out the other side, cleaning them out in the process. Undeniably weird, this traditional technique has helped me.
Not sharing neti pots is recommended. Sharing them also just seems gross, especially since they really aren’t expensive or hard to find. They range from very light-weight plastic models to sturdier ceramic versions. I think the plastic ones are easier for little ones to use because they are so light.
More importantly, be sure to use water that has been boiled if it isn’t already bottled or distilled. There are things that stomach acids can kill off with ease that will grow and multiply happily in your sinus cavities.
Licorice tea
When I start coughing, it gets extremely bad, extremely quickly due to past problems. I keep prescription cough syrup on hand at all times to head this off, but that doesn’t mean I like taking it.
In researching herbal remedies, I read about licorice for coughing. When the post-nasal drip gave me a wicked cough, I decided to give it a try. Licorice tea is smooth and mild, but if you hate black licorice, this might take some getting used to.
I steep a tea ball with anywhere from a teaspoon to a tablespoon of licorice root in eight ounces of water for five minutes. The tea ball can be used for two cups of tea, in my experience. With a “snap” tea ball similar to the one in the link, I simply fill it with licorice root without measuring at all.
Aromatherapy for congestion
I have been using the “Breathe” blend from Eden’s Garden, but most essential oil companies should have their own similar blend.
My son and I put it behind our ears and at the base of our neck. Some people put it in a diffuser and prefer that method.
Aromatherapy for hay fever
In my search, I found this article. It recommends Roman chamomile with lemon, eucalyptus, or lavender. I left my son choose, and he went with eucalyptus. Last night, I used put this all around and on his nose and cheeks. This morning, for the first time in weeks, he woke up and did not have a streaming nose and accompanying cough!! When I asked if he preferred essential oils or OTC medicine this morning, he chose the EOs. Yeah!
The article above has a lot more specific information, including a longer list of oils to blend, but I simply blended five drops of each of the two oils I chose into a 30 ml fragrance free hotel moisturizer. It was fast, easy, and seems to have helped.
Importance of several hay fever remedies
After my efforts and talking to my doctor, who is very supportive of alternative medicine, it seems that multiple methods of attack are needed for hay fever. Personally, I’m using several OTC medicines combined with several herbal remedies.
Next year, I’m eating my brie with honey and feeding my youngest toast with honey and cinnamon for breakfast during the winter months in an attempt to blunt the severity of hay fever. I don’t want to go through this again!
If you have any other home remedies, please add them in the comments!!
I have always had bad seasonal allergies! Now I don’t even feel them if I just put some lavender essential oil on the back of my neck every morning or when it gets bad during the spring and fall. No more puffy eyes, itchy throat, sneezing, or coughing. Nada! Lavender is a natural antihistamine. I’ve heard it works on the bottom of the feet as well for those that may not want to smell like a girl as much. Lavender also works on bug bites and bee stings.
Thanks! I’ll give that a try.
Just a caveat – if you have a ragweed allergy, chamomile will exacerbate it as it is a member of the same family. A friend of mine is allergic to ragweed and used a natural beauty product not knowing that it contained chamomile; she had a horrible skin reaction. I mentioned this to my family physician and he agreed that it most likely had caused her problem (he has “hayfever” allergies himself). Chamomile is used as a soothing ingredient in many products and does work well for people who are not ragweed allergic.
My son has grass and tree pollen allergies and we are trying the honey treatment. Not sure yet whether it helps as we need to remove him from his normal allergy medicine to check. Good luck on controlling those allergies!
As a Chinese Medicine herbalist, I have a few suggestions for you: #1 is that you boil your licorice longer. Licorice is a root and as such in our materia medica (Chinese that is) roots are boiled the first time for about 20 minutes, then with new water, boil again for 20 ish minutes and then pour the resulting tea together and drink. If you do not notice a benefit from this, after you try it, please feel free to disregard.
The other is a product that can be bought in most Whole Paycheck and analogues and that’s called Bian Pian. It’s a Chinese Patent Formula which means it’s made into pills and sold that way (instead of a bag of what looks like floor sweepings) and it’s a miracle! If it works for you, it will stop a nose running like a faucet, almost instantly! Here’s an Amazon link to the product I am talking about:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/phlxyyt
I recommend only that brand (plum flower) and only the NON-sugar coated ones, as the sugar coating messes with the formula and it’s not nearly as effective. If you want it to work instantly, chew, yes CHEW, a few like 4-8 and wait 15 min… add another one or two every 10-15 minutes, but be sure to stop when it begins to help or your sinuses will become uncomfortably dry (and that’s all that will happen if you don’t happen to ingest like the whole bottle or something like that.) Most Americans think this tastes terrible, but once you get the benefit, you will welcome it like your long lost friend! Oh yeah… might numb your tongue a little bit if you chew a lot… there’s an herb in there called Xi Xin (Chinese Wild Ginger, Asarum) that’s responsible for half the taste and all the numbness, but it’s necessary for how well that formula functions.
One more additional suggestion: For some people, the product Cold Snap, another Chinese herbal remedy, (http://www.ohco.com/pages/product-info) works very well to prevent all sorts of crud from happening from hay fever to full on flu. My experience is that it works best at the first intuition of a hint of “gee I wonder if I am getting sick?” If you can catch it then, you can ameliorate it totally or at least in part. I recommend the nasty tasting powder made into a tea and glugged down or sipped throughout the day, depending on the circumstances, over the far easier to take caps. Good luck!
I totally quit using my prescription allergy medicine after giving this EO blend a try: 5 drops Peppermint, 5 drops Lavender, 5 drops Lemon Essential oil in a tsp. of carrier oil like coconut or sweet almond oil. Whenever you get ANY symptom like sneezing, coughing, itchy eyes and/or nose, rub this blend all around your nose, even a bit through your nostril openings, behind your ears and on your throat. I get relief in just a few minutes with this. It has also helped my three boys who, like me, have hay fever and a real problem with tree pollen.
I’m going to give this a try today! It’s a nice, easy recipe with common oils. Thanks!
I prefer herbal remedies. Thanks for sharing this great post.