Oh, Those Allergies....

Hypnosis Suggestions for Kids with Allergies

It’s the season for pollen, trees, grass and weeds are all busily doing their thing.

Kids want to have fun outside in the summer, or to enjoy their pets anytime. But so many young allergy sufferers are potentially getting bogged down by what their families hope are helpful treatments. Years ago, I can remember my mother getting four of us all into her little VW bug for the long trip from the Northeast Kingdom to Burlington, so my older brother could receive allergy injections at 2 week intervals. That round trip was almost 250 miles for a short visit for him. He was the first-born and probably had less dirt and dust exposure than the rest of us, as Mom became necessarily more relaxed about housecleaning as the family grew. I don’t think those allergy shots helped my brother much. Diphenhydramine in the early 60s was available by prescription only. Now it and many other antihistamines, most of the others less sedating, are OTC. That drug is extremely sedating and that is why it is now included in night-time sleep aids and cold medicines. Not only does it stop a runny nose, it makes little kids behave like zombies. And I recall during my family practice years, seeing a very young child with a cold develop a very scary high fever because someone had dosed her repeatedly with Benadryl.

Alternatives are available but I think it might be better for parents and those contemplating parenthood to consider alternatives as well as strive for preventive care.

By that, I mean letting kids get exposed to stuff, get out in the dirt, roll around in the grass and under the trees to have early life exposure to the proteins that out in nature, so that the immune system becomes naturally desensitized.

One of the ways adults can acclimate themselves to local grasses, trees, and weeds is to consume raw honey that is produced by bees in your local area. But such unpasteurized honey is considered unsafe for infants, because it might carry botulinum toxin from contamination with nasty Clostridium botulinum. It’s considered safe, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, for children over 12 months of age to begin to consume honey.

An allergist told me years ago that allergic rhinitis to grass, trees and weeds had become much more prevalent when the dairy industry began Pasteurizing milk. This was his observation, which has since been confirmed by the NIH. I believe that this was at about the same time that smaller dairies bottling whole milk in those glass bottles with waxy cardboard caps. When I was little I recall a dairy delivery man leaving our milk in a little insulated tin box with a hinged lid. He would take away the clean, empty bottles that would be sterilized and reused, capped with the little wax covered caps that could be popped off. When milk began to be not only pasteurized but homogenized, these deliveries ended, as that small dairy went out of business. Then those who wanted cream for their coffee began to have to buy separate bottles of cream rather than decanting this from the top of those glass bottles. When the local dairy that supplied our milk shut down in the early ‘60s, we began getting waxed paper cartons of milk, now labeled as both pasteurized and homogenized. Now that we get everything in plastic, so we know the milk is fairly sterile, but I wonder whether those opaque plastic bottles are another sources for our microplastics exposures. Now, unless you are lucky enough to find the farms that will sell you raw milk in a bottle that you have to provide for yourself. I remember one such dairy farm that provided the milk and cream for a small resort business where I worked one summer in my teens. I learned to love coffee with that marvelous cream from Jersey cows, when I shared a very early breakfast with the cook, before going out to make beds for the summer people renting the cottages. The reason raw milk is so difficult to obtain is because of concern that cows may be carriers of Listeria bacteria, which can cause pregnancy loss, or highly pathogenic, Brucella. So milk production and sales has become highly regulated.

While eczema has always been a problem for genetically-predisposed people, this is more common now in hypervigilant, ultra-hygienic households. We now understand that antibacterial additives in soaps and cleansers tend to predispose babies and children in those families to both eczema and asthma, because early life bacterial exposure can permit relative desensitization. However, exposure to filth is another story, as we also know that exposure to cockroach allergens predisposes children ot asthma. Not to mention dust mite allergies remain a problem with indoor living.

We are now entering peak season for spring and summer biting insects, the pesky, vampire-like creatures that assail us when we escape the confines of our homes more to enjoy the warmth and sun. And sooner or later, exposure to poison ivy can occur, causing itchy blisters that are miserable afflictions. All these can be treated with antihistamines or short courses of steroids, but preferably, to avoid adverse effects, topical treatments are preferred. I used to recommend compresses made with Domboro’s powder in water, but now I wonder if it would be a poor choice on oozing skin, containing aluminum salts. Calamine and Caladryl lotions are topically used to dry wet lesions and reduce itch, but are messy7 Other options include herbal remedies such as peppermint leaf compresses, and anything with menthol from Eucalyptus oil. There are neat little sponge-tipped dispensers of anti-itch prilocaine that work for a few hours at a time for mosquito bite itching.

I could use that right now after receiving some mosquito and black fly bites in the last few days. Beyond these ideas, I also came up with some rhyming hypnosis suggestions that could be helpful for children. I recorded this for fun. I must say I could not hypnotize myself with this alone, but perhaps it would be more effective for very young children, because they are very suggestible, believing what they are told before age 7 or 8.

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My Email for Hypnotherapy: Stephanie@stephaniebellomo.com

Email for Voice-Over work: Stephanie@softspokenwomanvo.com