Local Honey and AllergiesWritten by Tom Ogren
Continued from page 1
When I’m asked how local should honey be for allergy prevention I always advise to get honey that was raised closest to where you live, closer better since it will have more of exactly what you’ll need. It may seem odd that straight exposure to pollen often triggers allergies but that exposure to pollen in honey usually has opposite effect. But this is typically what we see. In honey allergens are delivered in small, manageable doses and effect over time is very much like that from undergoing a whole series of allergy immunology injections. The major difference though is that honey is a lot easier to take and it is certainly a lot less expensive. I am always surprised that this powerful health benefit of local honey is not more widely understood, as it is simple, easy, and often surprisingly effective.
Thomas Ogren is the author of Allergy-Free Gardening, Ten Speed Press. Tom does consulting work on landscapes and allergies for the USDA, county asthma coalitions, and the Canadian and American Lung Associations. He has appeared on HGTV and The Discovery Channel. His book, Safe Sex in the Garden, was published in 2003. In 2004 Time Warner Books published his latest book: What the Experts May NOT Tell You About: Growing the Perfect Lawn. His website: www.allergyfree-gardening.com
| | MCS, Toxic Mold, Sick Building Syndrome, and Chronic Fatigue SyndromeWritten by Thomas Leo Ogren
Continued from page 1
She then confessed that she had tried to clean up all this mold, several times, using soap and water. Afterwards she had felt even sicker. I suggested that she explain all of this to landlord, and immediately move out until it was fixed. She did explain it all to landlord, but she did not move out. The landlord hired someone who supposedly cleaned it all up but she just got sicker and sicker. One day a few weeks later she called me up again. She was crying and told me that her doctor said that she had MS. The symptoms she was having certainly did seem like multiple sclerosis but I didn’t think that was her problem. As we talked she would lose it, stutter, slur her words, forget what she’d just said. She said that she’d had to take a leave of absence from her job since she just couldn’t work any more. When I asked her what she was doing instead of working, she said she was mostly just lying in her bed. It was about all she could do. “That bedroom,” I told her, “is killing you.” I called her back later and got her husband on phone. He was now starting to feel kind of sick himself. “Look,” I said, a little angry now, “ get hell out of there! Leave that apartment and do it tonight. Pack a few things, go to a motel and check yourselves in. Tomorrow you can tell your landlord what you had to do. If they won’t pay for motel bill, I’ll help you find a lawyer and you can sue him. They moved out of apartment that night and into a nearby motel room. He took some time off work and two of them just hung out at motel, watching TV, eating in a restaurant around corner, and they slept a good deal. The landlord (I think he was finally afraid of a lawsuit) did agree to cover their motel bill while this was being figured out. On phone I advised her husband that he ought to start looking for a new apartment. He told me that he was starting to feel more “like himself again,” and agreed to look for a different place to live. They stayed at motel for two weeks and by time they moved into their new apartment she too was starting to feel a little better. I insisted that her husband move everything from their old apartment himself. That all their clothes, everything, had to be thoroughly cleaned before he brought it into their next place. I didn’t want her to even walk in that door again, and she didn’t. As I write this now, it has been just over two years since they moved out of that mold spore-ridden apartment. Little by little she started getting better, slurring of words stopped, disorientation stopped, eventually all symptoms disappeared. Two months after they moved she went back to work. Six months later she felt so good she started taking night classes at local college. They are now both working full time, both are taking advanced computer classes in evenings and they are doing great. There’s been no more talk about her having MS either.
Thomas Ogren is the author of Allergy-Free Gardening. Tom does consulting work on landscaping for the USDA, county asthma coalitions, www.Allegra.com, and the Canadian and American Lung Associations. He has appeared on HGTV and The Discovery Channel. His book, Safe Sex in the Garden, was published in 2003. In 2004 Time Warner Books published his latest book: What the Experts May NOT Tell You About: Growing the Perfect Lawn. His website: www.allergyfree-gardening.com
|
