Wow - thank you for posting this!
I've been suffering from seasonal allergies most of my life. When I moved to Spain I thought it would get better, since the trees I am allergic to don't grow here.
I had sinusitis every time I had a cold - did my best to avoid anti-biotics, but some years I simply just could not find a way around it... until I found ginger tea: If I drank that in copious amounts as soon as I got a cold, I would not get sinusitis.
The first two years here it was a little better, but then we moved up here on our mountain and BAM! I was sick sick sick (my guess is olive and olivander) - and yes the anti-histamines you mentioned helped, but only a little and made me drowsy, so just when spring came and I wanted to go out and do gardening, I would be in bed most of the time.
Two years ago I cut out gluten - and while it helped a lot with mood-swings and sore joints it did nothing for my hay-fever... Last year I was so sick - I was in bed all the time! I was drinking nothing but nettle tincture (not tea - tincture, it was black black black). Finally I bought 5 kgs of it from my local herbalist. It is still sitting in the cabinet though - because I found a solution: Dairy free. 3 days into my adventures in dairy free land I was so much better - and I have hardly had any problems since. My husband also quite dairy a few months later, and his constant head-aches disappeared. I have started adding fermented dairy products back into my diet, but have had some issues with eczema that I can't seem to get rid off... so I was thinking maybe I should stop that again. But my neighbour has goats and I can get as much raw goat milk as I want. I will try to work a trip to his stables into my routine
