Spring brings on allergy season. Some people sneeze their way through these months until
June. Some people suffer terribly.
There are many over-the-counter or prescription remedies. I prefer a homeopathic melt-
under-the-tongue tablet from Boiron called Allergy Relief.
It has zero side effects, no prescription needed, and I order it from Amazon. 

Many years ago, I realized that every year I got a cold at the same time, almost to the day. This was an annual nuisance of having fits of sneezing and a sore throat, which often devolved into more than a deep cold, sinus infection, earaches, and basic symptoms of influenza. It was worse than annoying. It was almost like having a chronic illness.  And then it occurred to me that it was allergy season. Both early spring and again during the late summer through fall until the first frost were times I found I was ill each year. To me, it was an obvious pattern, but this did not manifest until my late teens.
My sister and my father both had allergies when I was young. I always thought that I was not
susceptible to pollen or whatever was making them so miserable. This was no longer true. So,
I began taking allergy medicine, which helped me to avoid getting sick, but the side effects
bothered me almost as much as being sick. I was so addled and dull-witted and sleepy due to
the pills, I could not function at 100%. 

For many years, I suffered from various types of hay fever and other pollen-type airborne
allergic reactions. The cure my doctor offered was medical, of course. He said I would need
injections once a week all year round to alleviate the symptoms. And it seemed to do the trick. But it was a nuisance to go once every week for a shot. It was probably expensive, though my husband paid that bill, and I don’t think we had medical insurance yet.

Finally, someone explained homeopathy to me and told me to try a homeopathic remedy. If I take these tablets from about February 24th right on through the end of May, my once serious allergies are almost non-existent. Since I discovered the homeopathic remedy from Boiron, I have to remind myself to take it because my reactions to pollen are so few. Several days or even a week may pass. Then, I sneeze just a couple of times and quickly reach for some of the little white tablets to put under my tongue. I have been using homeopathic pills now for more than 40 years, through several name changes for the pills. They work.

When I first discovered the homeopathic Allergy Relief pills, it was fall, and we had just begun
“cubbing” with the Orange County Hunt. We rode in fields of dusty crops about to be plowed
under, or there might be a field of goldenrod, blowing in the breeze. It could be brutal for
allergy sufferers out there in the open. It seems to me Mike DuPont was newly Master of OCH.
(But I may have the year wrong.) I wish I remembered how I learned about the homeopathic
remedy. Could it have been from my massage therapist? Or some other allergy sufferer in the
hunt group? It has long since faded into the back recesses of my mind. 

However, I owe a
massive debt to that person, whoever they were. 

Before I discovered the side-effect-free little pills to place under my tongue, I had tried all the
medical stuff. I was bleary-eyed and zombie-like from drugs that stopped me from sneezing
and kept my eyes from itching horribly. Those drugs made me drowsy and lethargic, and I felt
awful in a different way from using medication to alleviate the allergies.  I hated taking them,
but sometimes needed to be able to function outdoors during allergy season.  I remember
feeling awful about not wanting to sit by the pool or have dinner out there with Charley. It
was just “torture” to sit there with my face feeling hot and swollen, my throat closing up, and
my eyes itchy and runny. Staying inside in an air-conditioned room was my only option unless
I was “drugged.” Not a good situation.

Some wonderful person gave the name of these pills. I believe I had to go to the health food
store in Warrenton to get them. They came in packs of three separate pill sleeves that you
could press on to extract a pill. The directions said to take them when needed. It seems to me
that it mentioned one could take them as close together as every fifteen minutes.  And when
my allergies were fierce, that is what I did. If I felt a sneeze coming on, I would pop two pills
into my mouth, and they would melt under my tongue.
They worked! 
I could NOT believe it,
but they worked. Sometimes, when out hunting, I took them every few minutes. Other times,
hours would go by without needing them. But they always worked almost instantly. Of
course, I was desperate.  But the relief was instant. And the lack of sleepy side effects, or any
side effects at all, seemed miraculous.


I am no expert in homeopathy. But the pills are diluted so much that there is basically
nothing left in them that would harm you. Of course, doctors say, “Well, that proves it is just
not a cure,” but the fact is, I am cured. Perhaps it is the placebo effect. Perhaps I was growing
out of my allergies. But if I do not take these magic pills, my symptoms come back. The
allergies are real.

Of course, I believe all of our symptoms are in our heads. I think we have total control over our own health. But I do not know how to access this fact to make it work. Sometimes, we do it by accident. Other times, we try too hard and nothing seems to work. One day, I suspect some scientist working on his own will discover how to turn on the placebo effect for all of our physical woes. The pharmaceutical companies would want to have him “murdered” or at least exiled to a remote island with no contact with the outer world. It would be the end of drugs–the end of dependency and all those side effects, for which doctors can prescribe even more drugs. What a waste. 

How I would love to live to see that day.

In the meantime, I tell people about homeopathic pills all the time.  But generally, they do not
pay attention to what I tell them. It does not fit with their worldview. They think
“homeopathic” remedies are fake, or sugar water, or ineffective. But they work for me. These
people want a person in a white coat to tell them what to do. And that has played out so
badly in certain areas, for instance, covid and all that fear of a virus. I could go on and on
about that subject.  But people are so divided about it still that there is no point.

It applies to childbirth, also. Again, those who understand natural birth at home know what they know. Still, the majority of people feel it is necessary to use a doctor (an obstetrician) and be in a hospital setting “just in case If they could only understand that BEING IN THE HOSPITAL is what brings on the situations for which they need professional help. Such a conundrum. But I know how futile it is to try to convince anyone to change their beliefs.

In spite of the fact that I know the date, August 24 when I used to get sick each year, few believe me.  I decided it was an allergic reaction to something at that time of year, and it was the same every single year. That proved to be true. Yet other people tell me they have only a terrible cold, and they don’t have allergies. Well, that is what I used to think, too, but the big difference seems to be that I figured out the difference in my mid-twenties and have acted accordingly ever since.
I guess I will never know how many of these people really have a “cold” or how many are
actually having an allergic reaction to something in the air. They tell me how their cold has
turned into a chest cold, fevers, shakes, and eventually pneumonia and lung congestion. But
have they actually ruled out allergies?

I wonder.

Copyright©. 2025 Bonnie B. Matheson