Vegan with allergies to ragweed

So the title says it all sorta. We are a vegan household. I have pretty rough allergies during ragweed season because it drops and time as fall rains. I'm also allergic to mold, so the damp makes things tough. Right now, there's Benadryl and blessed unconsciousness to help me find off utter madness.

But what if there isn't Benadryl some day? Any *vegan* solutions? I've heard good things about quercetin, but I've eaten grapefruits and oranges out the wazoo and no help yet. I would love to stop sneezing violently 20+ time a day and blowing my nose every 5-10 minutes.

And no, it's not COVID19, I work in healthcare and get screened regularly. 👍

Does pseudoephedrine work for you?  It seems to help me the best of the common fixes....

I had read once that goldenrod helps with ragweed allergies.
I'm not sure how effective that is though.

Vitamin C?

I'm not sure if honey is vegan but raw local honey helps. Short of that. Honestly get allergy shots now while there's still allergy shots!

also according to my book medicinal plants of the pnw. stinging nettle, and oxeye daisy help with inflammation.

Howdy!

Try Astragalus (Standardized) for allergies. I will pop 4 (1000 mg) at one time for a sneezing or runny nose extravaganza. 2 in AM/ 2 PM during Spring - First Frost is routine. No side affects except no more sneezing and less mucous in pathways!

If you have ragweed in your yard, keep pulling it out as it grows season after season; eventually it will be removed from your garden/ yard/ land.

Michelle Scout wrote:Howdy!

Try Astragalus (Standardized) for allergies. I will pop 4 (1000 mg) at one time for a sneezing or runny nose extravaganza. 2 in AM/ 2 PM during Spring - First Frost is routine. No side affects except no more sneezing and less mucous in pathways!

If you have ragweed in your yard, keep pulling it out as it grows season after season; eventually it will be removed from your garden/ yard/ land.

Is that a homeopathic thing?

Rebecca Marcella wrote:I'm not sure if honey is vegan but raw local honey helps. Short of that. Honestly get allergy shots now while there's still allergy shots!

also according to my book medicinal plants of the pnw. stinging nettle, and oxeye daisy help with inflammation.

Honey is not vegan as it is an animal product.

“Is that a homeopathic thing?”

The word homeopathic is not a familiar term so I may refrain from making a statement to which I am unfamiliar.

My history with the herb, Astragalus is from a friend who went in for surgery and her Doc said to take it to build her immune system for a better recovery.

I did some googs and found that Chinese have made it one of the 50 foundation herbs in Chinese medicine. It’s from the milk vetch family and does not have any side effects for me.

Here’s a a few links to get you started.
https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/astragalus
https://www.webmd.com/heart/astragalus-root-heart-benefits-side-effects

I prefer Whole Foods Standardized or Gaia Astagulus Supreme.

Recently someone here mentioned an old-school allergy nasal spray, cromolyn sodium (or as we call it where I am, sodium cromoglycate - Vividrin, Nasalcrom, other brand names) and my husband has started using it with great results for his random and totally unidentifiable allergies. He's taken all the allergy pills in the past but... benadryl doesn't combine well with cars and motorcycles, and the allergy tabs he took in the US cost $$$$ here (and don't always work). The best part is that you can use it when you need to and not have to take it all the time as a preventative. Might be worth a try, I think it's OTC.

D.W.,

I too have struggled with ragweed allergies for my entire life.  I too have constant sneezing fits, constant runny nose, and an overall itchy feeling that lasts 6-8 weeks.  In my youth, I basically don't remember my first 6 weeks of school because I was either distracted by sneezing or I was dopey from Benadryl (YUCK!).

I wish I had a truly natural remedy for ragweed pollen but I don't.  We used to try mowing down/pulling out ragweed from around our house, but that was a useless gesture as ragweed pollen is so tiny that it floats upwards of 40,000 feet and spreads far and wide.  Basically, one would have to sterilize a huge section of earth in order to escape the pollen--talk about the cure being worse than the disease!

What has radically changed my life has been two pharmaceutical products.  The first being Zyrtec.  Zyrtec, in my opinion, works every bit as well as Benadryl, but does not leave me sleepy/dopey.  I now only use Benadryl only on a blue moon.  The second remedy has been nasal cortico-steroids such as Nasonex or flownase.  Essentially, all the nasal cortico-steroids work the same so I am not choosy about one over another, I simply go for the generic that I can find.

Using the two products together has radically changed my life.  I used to despise Fall with a passion, but I have not had a true allergy season now since 1998.  Now Fall is bautiful.

D.W.,  I realize that these are not natural solutions to your questions, so I apologize if I  am off topic or not really helpful.  Simply put, I sympathize with those suffering through (especially) Fall time allergies and I like to help relieve the suffering of those enduring them.  These two products have helped enormously and if they help you as well, so much the better--even if they are not natural.

Hang in there,

Eric

I don’t know if they’re vegan, but I have to at least say it for others suffering the same thing: allergy shots. My partner had such horrible allergies 2-3 months out of the year he was in a Benadryl haze the entire time, slept all the time, memory issues...he was like a zombie. It affected everything we did or wanted to do and he was plain miserable. He completed a round of allergy shots last year, and he’s a new man this spring/summer. Occasional sniffles, but no loss of breath ring through his nose or Benadryl binges. They’re supposed to last about 10 years I think.


If you aren’t feeling that, I say look for an alternative medical doctor (with a medical degree please) who specializes in allergies. The shots are exposure therapy after all, microdoses of what you are allergic to. You could get the same benefit from capsulizing and ingesting the allergen, but this should be done under medical supervision as a risk is anaphylactic shock which can kill you. This is why the shots are done in a doctors office and the patient observed afterwards for too strong an allergic reaction.

Edited to add: I absolutely DO NOT recommend anyone to self-treat allergies with exposure therapy without medical supervision.

Eric Hanson wrote:D.W.,

I too have struggled with ragweed allergies for my entire life.  I too have constant sneezing fits, constant runny nose, and an overall itchy feeling that lasts 6-8 weeks.  In my youth, I basically don't remember my first 6 weeks of school because I was either distracted by sneezing or I was dopey from Benadryl (YUCK!).

I wish I had a truly natural remedy for ragweed pollen but I don't.  We used to try mowing down/pulling out ragweed from around our house, but that was a useless gesture as ragweed pollen is so tiny that it floats upwards of 40,000 feet and spreads far and wide.  Basically, one would have to sterilize a huge section of earth in order to escape the pollen--talk about the cure being worse than the disease!

What has radically changed my life has been two pharmaceutical products.  The first being Zyrtec.  Zyrtec, in my opinion, works every bit as well as Benadryl, but does not leave me sleepy/dopey.  I now only use Benadryl only on a blue moon.  The second remedy has been nasal cortico-steroids such as Nasonex or flownase.  Essentially, all the nasal cortico-steroids work the same so I am not choosy about one over another, I simply go for the generic that I can find.

Using the two products together has radically changed my life.  I used to despise Fall with a passion, but I have not had a true allergy season now since 1998.  Now Fall is bautiful.

D.W.,  I realize that these are not natural solutions to your questions, so I apologize if I  am off topic or not really helpful.  Simply put, I sympathize with those suffering through (especially) Fall time allergies and I like to help relieve the suffering of those enduring them.  These two products have helped enormously and if they help you as well, so much the better--even if they are not natural.

Hang in there,

Eric

Thanks Eric! Yea, I'm good with medicine, that's not a problem. I'm trying to think about what I do when there is no longer a pharma company able to bring these products to market affordably due to Peak Everything. I've used Zyrtec and agree it works wonderful. 👍

S Greyzoll wrote:I don’t know if they’re vegan, but I have to at least say it for others suffering the same thing: allergy shots. My partner had such horrible allergies 2-3 months out of the year he was in a Benadryl haze the entire time, slept all the time, memory issues...he was like a zombie. It affected everything we did or wanted to do and he was plain miserable. He completed a round of allergy shots last year, and he’s a new man this spring/summer. Occasional sniffles, but no loss of breath ring through his nose or Benadryl binges. They’re supposed to last about 10 years I think.


If you aren’t feeling that, I say look for an alternative medical doctor (with a medical degree please) who specializes in allergies. The shots are exposure therapy after all, microdoses of what you are allergic to. You could get the same benefit from capsulizing and ingesting the allergen, but this should be done under medical supervision as a risk is anaphylactic shock which can kill you. This is why the shots are done in a doctors office and the patient observed afterwards for too strong an allergic reaction.

Edited to add: I absolutely DO NOT recommend anyone to self-treat allergies with exposure therapy without medical supervision.

I had allergy shots for years as a kid. Didn't seem to help a lot. I will however consult with someone locally. Perhaps the quality has improved in the intervening 25 years.

Edit: I super appreciate the caveat about not doing self-directed care. It's weird to me that everyone knows not to go out in the words and eat random mushrooms to "see what happens" but then some people are super cavalier about essential oils and plant extracts and alt medicine stuff. Like.... Where do you think most medicines come from? Plant extracts. Fungal extracts. Hellooooo!! That stuff can kill you or make you wish it had killed you. Please everyone be safe and sound-minded.

What changed my.life in regards to allergies was the herb eyebright. I bought it powdered and made a half ethanol, half glycerin tincture with that powder. At first I took it pretty religiously 2-3x a day for about 9 months and was allergy free after that. Now I start taking it in late winter and continue into the summer (I just put it up about mid July this year).  It's possible you could take it as capsules and possibly make a nasal spray, but I can only personally vouch for the tincture

D.W. Stratton wrote:

S Greyzoll wrote:I don’t know if they’re vegan, but I have to at least say it for others suffering the same thing: allergy shots. My partner had such horrible allergies 2-3 months out of the year he was in a Benadryl haze the entire time, slept all the time, memory issues...he was like a zombie. It affected everything we did or wanted to do and he was plain miserable. He completed a round of allergy shots last year, and he’s a new man this spring/summer. Occasional sniffles, but no loss of breath ring through his nose or Benadryl binges. They’re supposed to last about 10 years I think.


If you aren’t feeling that, I say look for an alternative medical doctor (with a medical degree please) who specializes in allergies. The shots are exposure therapy after all, microdoses of what you are allergic to. You could get the same benefit from capsulizing and ingesting the allergen, but this should be done under medical supervision as a risk is anaphylactic shock which can kill you. This is why the shots are done in a doctors office and the patient observed afterwards for too strong an allergic reaction.

Edited to add: I absolutely DO NOT recommend anyone to self-treat allergies with exposure therapy without medical supervision.

I had allergy shots for years as a kid. Didn't seem to help a lot. I will however consult with someone locally. Perhaps the quality has improved in the intervening 25 years.

Edit: I super appreciate the caveat about not doing self-directed care. It's weird to me that everyone knows not to go out in the words and eat random mushrooms to "see what happens" but then some people are super cavalier about essential oils and plant extracts and alt medicine stuff. Like.... Where do you think most medicines come from? Plant extracts. Fungal extracts. Hellooooo!! That stuff can kill you or make you wish it had killed you. Please everyone be safe and sound-minded.

The shots can also be localized sometimes- you would be tested for local allergens. And they’ve probably expanded the library in 25 years.