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Overload and Target Organs
Y
ou sneezed, you feel achy. There, another sneeze. You’ve got ’flu,
right?
Most likely wrong. One of the commonest symptoms I
encountered in my clinical working years was a bunch of symptoms which
suggested ‘flu but which wasn’t. In fact the patient was sometimes well again
next day. A viral infection doesn’t clear like that; ten days to mount a full
immune response, more likely.
Think about what you already know. What is the commonest cliché
for an allergy? A sneeze! So a bout of sneezing could be an allergy, just as
surely as it might mean an upper respiratory infection. If you add aches and
pains that still doesn’t mean ‘flu. Only if there is a fever should ‘flu be your
first suspicion and that is, frankly, quite rare.
Many people suffer bouts of colds or ‘flu but which clear up in
24 - 72 hours. These are not infections but allergic reactions and are very
common, once you know what to look for. Do not be fooled into thinking
that only inhaled allergens affect the airways; you do not have to breathe the
allergen to get respiratory symptoms. In fact one of the most important things I
discovered in all those years I practiced was that 85% or more of respiratory
allergy, asthma included, was because of food reactions.
Even if the patient is allergic to dust and house mites, this is often
secondary. Because a person reacts strongly to dust and dust mites does not
mean that these are the causative agents of asthma or rhinitis.
The real culprit I found, time and time again, was one or more
foods. I found this because I did not quit at the first diagnostic clue but
went all the way. I have seen many hundreds of cases where a person was
allergic to dust yet when they changed their diet, they made a substantial
recovery.
This accords very well with Selye’s GAS theory. Reducing the
overall load helps the person recover and he or she will move back from