Blow it out your...nose?

I, along with the some other 50 million Americans, can successfully say that I experienced G-d's worst punishment - allergies.

Tis the season for Kleenex (with aloe and Vicks of course), Allegra (and other decieftul medications), and noses rendering you looking like Rudolph.

April - May encompasses what many people know (and deteste) as "allergy season". It derives its essence from the numerous blooming perennial flowers. Perennial flowers are flowers that bloom seasonally, yet are a blossom of a resiliant plant, such as a shrub or tree. They bloom, we sneeze, they die off, then they wait a couple of months and repeat.

Fortunately, the American marketing firms have teamed up with the pharmaceutical groups to produce items such as Allegra, Zertec, Claritan, and many other "solutions" to the suffering endured by many. However, how much do these products help?

Here is an allergic reaction in a nutshell:

Allergens are anything that can trigger an alergic reaction in your body. Typically, they are things like foods, pollen, dust mites, etc. These allergens enter your body through any number of ways (inhaliation, indigestion, injection, etc.) and begin latching onto your bodies finitely numbered mast cells. See picture at left. As your body's mast cells attempt to defend against the intruding allergens, it produces an allergic reaction (sneezing, swollen sinus glands, swollen esophagus). So, as your body attempts to regain equilibrium, the side affect are the unwanted symptoms that define allergies as we know them.

Here's where it gets fun: the medicaitons that are produced and prescribed have nothing to do with your body's immune system or mast cells. In fact, the sole purpose of them is to sedate the mast cells natural tendency to defend against intruding allergens. So, these meds are essentially duct-taping the mouth of your body telling you that its being attacked. Real nice, huh??

Anyway, as the globe spins and seasons change, just remember, if you can tough it out for one more season, you may just outgrow those allergies that made you "that kid" in elementary school. I was and I did.

Read on my followers,

Abe Froman, the once allergy-ridden yet still Sausage King of Chicago