Cang Er Zi San is an Chinese Medicine Herbal Formula that is working great for me right now....
I recommend it highly. i am in Grad. School for chinese med. and acupuncture and you could see a student and get herbs for a lower rate at our public Clininc- AIMC on shattuck Ave.
Good luck!
RaktaMira

Local honey is good for building your ammune to the allergens you are fighting with in your neck of the woods. It helps control your reactions too.

EAT LOCAL HONEY!

You might want to check out MSM: www.nutriteam.com/msm-allergies.htm

I started taking it for entirely separate reasons (joint and skin health) but supposedly it really helps the body react to allergens better. It doesn't sound natural, no, but it's a kind of sulfur (if you're allergic to sulfur--never mind!).

Well if you are pregnant be careful of what you use.

But other than that I can say that when I had my kids some things changed in my body.
I have a bad reaction to some foods I eat. So I stay away from those.

And never really had allergies until I moved to Texas.
So if there have been changes of location of where you live this could also be the cause.

I have tried all of the above. Freeze dried nettle capsules are good, they stop the histamine reaction. I used to take them along with Quercetin and vitamin C. Lately I'm trying a homeopathic by Boiron called Sabadil. It works really well. I take MSM regularly and it's great stuff. It cuts the inflammation in the body which is why it helps with allergens. When I lived in New Mexico, there was this amazing homeopathic tincture called Allergina. I can't seem to find it anywhere now that I'm not in NM anymore, but it was absolutely amazing. It is made to fight all the allergens in a particular zone of the country. I always assumed that they made one for every different zone of the country, but I'm not so sure anymore. I just tried to look it up on the web, and no luck. I can't take bee pollen, I seem to have an allergic reaction to it, but there's never any harm in taking a spoonful of LOCAL honey every day.

Good Luck!

I'm one of those scary-allergic people (even my allergist says so) so I tend to be more conservative in dealing with my allergies. As I understand it, the point of eating local honey is to build up your tolerance to the allergens. If you're crazy-allergic you have to become a bubble person and not expose yourself to any of that stuff. My doc told me not to eat honey.

I don't think typical seasonal allergies warrant my kind of vigilance, but things like anaphylaxis are dangerous, so I just wanted to toss out the note of caution. I'm not suggesting that alternative remedies shouldn't be tried, but just be careful and monitor yourself. It's not exactly like taking a new multivitamin. But I'm sure you already know that. :-p

I agree with the local honey suggestion, but want to add that because you are introducing your particular allergens directly into your body, you may have a few days in which you actually feel like it is getting worse (this is assuming, of course, that this is what is causing you to react in the first place). After everything "sorts itself out", you will hopefully get relief.

Bee pollen is basically a super strong version of the honey. I would not recommend taking more than one granule to start out. It was too strong for me, but the honey works great.

Even while you are pregnant you might want to do a liver cleanse, which seems to be a source of many allergy issues. The nettle is a great suggestion, and I would also recommend astragalus, a Chinese herb. For your liver, use things like Oregon Grape Root, Barberry Bark, etcetera, or if you wish to go more gentle (which I do) and do it for longer, try Burdock and Yellow Dock roots, Turmeric, Milk Thistle Seeds (or Dandelion Root), and Cardamon (which helps). Mix a ground powder with raw honey and take about 1/2 teaspoon twice a day. Also, make sure your bowels move well (or you can add some Cascara Sagrada bark to your mix too). I would do a liver cleanse every Spring if you are prone to this. Good luck!

An allergy is the body's way of telling us that it cannot handle something in the environment around you... it can be many things but most people put it down to pollin or something in nature.

The problem is that as the Earth is becoming more and more polluted people are becoming less and less tolerant to chemicals... in season it is most likely the crop spraying chemicals on the pollin that are irritating you.

Many many study's say that these chemicals are not toxic but they do not take into account the combined effect of all the chemicals we are exposed to every minute of every day.

This toxic cocktail is making us more and more irritable (allergies, allergies)... so I would suggest that you look closer to home and cut out all the products that have toxins in them (household cleaning products are the worst... start readling labels and then google the names if you don't understand.... its mind boggling what we don't know)... also try to eat only locally grown organic produce.

The reason I think that you are suddenly now more subceptable to allergies since your pregnancy... is because you body is telling you what your child can and can't be exposed too (children these days are HIGHLY sensitive to toxins)... this is a gift... you should listen to it.

My friend told me about something called a neti pot [www.netipot.co.uk/] which you can buy to flush out the sinuses, but I used a pipette. It seemed to soothe me a bit and take away the lightheadedness and tight feeling in my head. I forgot to, but I was going to add in ginger to the salt water...dunno why it just seemed the right thing to do...I'm going to try it out tonight and see if it makes the symptoms any better.