My Battle With Pollen

I have allergies.  Environmental ones.  Bad ones.  I’m allergic to almost every pollen you can think of, grass, trees, flowers, shrubs, you name it.  This is more than a little ironic since I own a landscape company.  Yep, it would be like an office worker being allergic to paper or a salesperson who is allergic to people.  Crazy, huh?

I’m also allergic to pet dander, and yes, I do have a dog (I grew up around dogs, love dogs, really love my dog, Maggie).  C’est la vie.

How bad have my allergies been?  It was always more of a drain on my energy than a drain from my nose.  Tired all the time.  Major sinus pressure.  It hurt to move my face.

I took allergy shots for a decent part of my childhood/teen years.  When I hit my twenties, I started working out a lot and my immune system strengthened some with my regular workout routine, so my allergies weren’t quite as bad (I was only laid up in bed occasionally from the intense sinus pressure).  As I hit my thirties, the pollen demons decided to become a little more serious in their attacks.   So Sudafed (pseudoephedrine) became a part of my daily defense.  For years, I was taking 12 hour Sudafed every morning.  Probably became a little addicted to the stuff, and no, it probably wasn’t the best thing for me.

So yeah, I’ve lived with allergies all my life, you get used to them.

When my wife started using essential oils, helping me with my fight against pollen was one of her first priorities.  And after a little bit of: me saying “I’m fine with the Sudafed”, and her saying “no you’re not”, and me saying “yes I am”, and her saying… well, you get the idea… I finally relented to seeing what she could do.  Hey, what did I have to lose, right?

She researched and found that there were certain oils that worked great for supporting the respiratory and immune systems.  Three in particular are known to work well together:  Lemon, Lavender, and Peppermint.

You can actually apply these topically, but I personally ingest them.  I opted for the oil combination in a capsule, three to five drops each of Lavender and Lemon and one/two drops of Peppermint, three times a day.  It’s what Meredith calls the Sinus Trio.

I’ve been using the trio ever since… my sinus headaches are gone, the constant fatigue is gone, and I breathe easy!