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Bees, Honey and Allergies
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Bees, Honey and Allergies
Honey experts wanted!
Ever since I returned home from Iraq, I have been plagued with mild to medium allergies. No clue what they dusted me with over there to make this happen, or it was just an age thing (turned 33 there) and things just changed. After two allergy tests, it was discovered that if it is green and growing in Kansas, I have some level of allergic reaction to it. Great….I’m a Freesteader in Kansas allergic to everything that grows in Kansas!
Either way, the VA has had me on generic Zyrtec since 2010. They also provide me with albuterol and Flonase. In 2020, they started me on a two year long schedule of allergy shots. For the longest time it seemed to work, but the final stage of the shots did nothing but blow my arms out and give me pretty nasty reactions.
So the options were to continue to recycle through the two shots every two weeks thing, or look for alternative answers. This year, I decided to ween myself off of all the drugs the VA has had me on since 2010. I want to be able to function without the need for any medications, at least as much as possible.
So, my question is, is there truth to the things I have read that if I start to dose myself with local honey made from bees that are engaging with local pollen, that this is a legit treatment if not semi-cure for these allergies?
Anyone that has experience with bee keeping and honey and allergies, please comment below. I may be in the market to buy/barter for some honey if it will help.
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22 Replies
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I don’t know if there is anything to it or not, but myself and my wife’s allergies didn’t seem as bad when we were doing local honey a couple times a week. I think we will be starting that back up!
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I hope it does. I really would like a natural remedy to this issue. I can only stock up so many pills in the “bunker” before I need to stop. haha
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Same boat as you. Poison Ivy/Oak kicks my butt and have to have plenty of allergy meds on hand
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Spags, local honey will absolutely help. Come get a jar and let’s see how well it helps you
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Excellent!
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Good to see you have a source for local honey!
From the research I have done on allergies, they are most often a sign of liver toxicity. So, a good detox should help clear those as well as the honey. Calcium bentonite clay taken internally is one of the safest ways to get that started.
When my son in law came back from Iraq, he was highly toxic also. He had bloodwork done by a Naturopathic Doc and his aluminum numbers were scary high, along with some others. They went on strict Gerson Diet and clay baths and clay internally for a year and a few more things and after a year his bloodwork was clear.
Wish you the best on your healing journey!
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I appreciate the information. I’ll look into that.
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Not a honey expert but we have successfully used local bee pollen to treat pollen allergy.
Key is to start using a few granules (1-2) under the tongue every day, starting one month before pollen season. Your mouth will initially start itching but as your body adjusts to it, you can increase the amount of granules. Do it every year.
Hope this helps 🙂
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It absolutely does!
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Hey Everyone! Now that we have way more page members, lets get some other comments about bees, honey and allergies!
Tell your stories and experiences!
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I am definitely no expert, but I have a little experience in this area.
My son dealt with allergies non-stop when he was very young. He was on the various allergy meds approved for little ones, his body would get used to it and we’d have to switch to another. He was also on a prescription nasal spray. None of this made the allergies go away, it just lessened the severity and made it more tolerable. When he turned 2, the pediatrician decided to send him for the skin prick allergy testing. Prior to the testing, he couldn’t take any kind of medication for an amount of time leading up to his appointment. I knew it would be very hard on him not having any suppression so I looked into homeopathic options to hold him over. I ended up on local honey and cinnamon. He took it every day up until his appointment and, lo and behold, his symptoms had disappeared! He never was without symptoms on the meds. So we continued the honey and cinnamon for a while until we found other homeopathic options (because the honey got to be too expensive for our extremely limited income at the time). He still struggles with seasonal allergies as a 10yo but they’re not year round anymore and the boiron allergy tablets always knock them out when they’re taken according to directions.
All that said; his current pediatrician has a degree in homeopathy and she told me that if local honey is taken every single day, for an entire year, that it would eliminate the allergies altogether. We have not tried this to prove it, but maybe that’s something we need to start soon.
Good luck and thank you for your service.
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Wow! That’s an amazing story and exactly the kind of response that I was hoping to get on this thread! Thank you.
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Hello everyone – I know I’m late to this discussion, but, let me add a bit here – from beekeeping and allergy experience. One of the keys that often gets overlooked is to find a local honey source and work with them to not only get honey from the spring nectar flow but also some from the fall flow. Most of the honey they offer is from the spring because the fall flow is generally left for the bees to use for over-wintering, and the spring nectar flow is usually bigger than the fall. By getting some honey from the fall plants you ingest some pollen that helps build up some resistance to the late bloomers. Also, with severe allergies, it takes a longer time to build up the resistance needed to reduce your symptoms and your body’s reaction to the influx of the allergens. One more thing, at least this medicine tastes good!
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Thank you for this answer. And you are never late, just timely!
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Honey really does help, at least it did for me. Growing up in middle NC, I never seemed to have a problem with allergies, but when I got out of the military and moved to northern VA. The pollen there would tear me up. A friend suggest local honey a few times a week on toast. Shortly after starting this, the pollen problem went away. Now, I can’t help with the other smells blowing out of DC.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 1 month ago by CarolinaCarefree.
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Thank you for your answer!
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Having been born and raised in the South many moons ago, the woods were my playground. With poison ivy and poison oak being so prolific, I always had bouts with the stuff. I could just about look at it and suffer. What does this have to do with honey? Well, there were two things everyone kept on hand in those days. Local honey and a medicinal bottle of bourbon. Unfortunately, honey wasn’t a help with poison ivy/oak. However, even back then, everyone believed local honey was the item to keep on hand to prevent allergies. So why did I bring up poison ivy and poison oak?
One summer I worked for a crude oil pipeline in order to save money for college. One day, while going through the supply room of the company, I happened upon a little green box that caught my eye. It contained several small vials of liquid and directions on when to mix each vial with water and drink it. It was taken over several days. The Purpose … To make you unresponsive to poison ivy and poison oak. It explained how it would gradually tune your body to not respond to the oils from the plants. Knowing how honey did practically the same thing, I took it. As it said might happen, I developed a dime size breakout of poison ivy on my arm. Once that disappeared (in the 60’s), I have ‘never’ had aother reaction to poison ivy or poison oak. It worked. So, I would agree, putting something bad in over time can definitely help your body to keep the same bad things at bay.
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What an interesting thing. What was the bottle of liquid for poison ivy/oak? That’s truly interesting.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 1 month ago by
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This is for allergies and perhaps for the person that mentioned they had to stop buying local honey because it was too expensive.
My friends was extremely allergic to everything (fresh cut grass, pollen, many foods, etc) and spent a majority of the summer indoors as a child and adult. Her latest daughter had bad eczema and the doctor told her she was allergic to many foods, so she cut a lot of foods out for herself and her daughter. She started making all the fermented foods; sauerkraut, kefir, kombucha, kimchi, and fermented vegetables like pickles, carrots, green beans, etc, with water and salt, no vinegar. They’ve been eating something fermented every day for over a year, her daughter loves it and asks for fermented foods multiple times per day. This year was the first time she was able to enjoy the outdoors year round, her allergies flared up just a little in Fall when hay was being cut, and the eczema on her daughter has completely gone away.
I’m thinking adding fermented foods for a couple years with your local honey would be very beneficial. And if honey seems too expensive, a head of cabbage is a fraction of the price, so combine them, eat honey couple times a week and fermented foods every day.
Ferment the food at home yourself, reason being the food will be fermented with the microbes in your immediate environment, and as the season changes, you will be eating the changing/morphing microbes, and your body will be getting a wide variety of immune boosters.
Fermenting seams scary in the beginning, just start experimenting with one jar, don’t stop, keep trying! in a month or two you will be having a lot of fun! The variety is truly endless!
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I’ve heard that allergies have to do with liver toxicity. I wonder if fermented foods help with your gut flora in order to cause balance within your body. That naturally helps with issues like allergies possibly?
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Thanks for commenting! How do you dose?
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