Bee allergy free, eat honey from a bee?

[JP]

I have now heard from at least 3 people that consuming honey from your area greatly deminishes your chances of getting allergies. This topic has probably been brought up before, but I would appreciate your responses. I would certainly assume feedback from you leadpipe as I've read about your situation with your son. How is he doing?

[Apis629]

Last spring(spring 2004) my alergies were terrable.  I was allergic to some type of pollen and I'd be up all night coughing and all day my eyes would water.  I tried some honey at the local farmers market and bought about a pound worthe this spring.  I esspecially enjoyed it on banana bread and my allergies were no where near as sever this year.  I strongly suppport the idea that eating local honey can reduce allergies!

[JP]

this may sound a little odd, perhaps not. One of my rat terriers, my female, Minnie's eyes water terribly sometimes & I wonder if she has allergies. Might give her some honey, think it works with dogs?

[Lesli]

One of my rat terriers, my female, Minnie's eyes water terribly sometimes

My dog has the same type of allergy, but he's allergic to wheat and corn. Try a dog food without those ingrdients, first.

[Finsky]

Some people are allergic, no matter how local honey is. When eys start to tickle, it is sign of allergy.

My wife use to put honey on the skin in sauna. Once she put dandelion honey and she got really bad reaction. Her skin was like in fire in area she put it.

I got food allergy when I have made home wine ten years.

[Miss Chick-a-BEE]

The idea behind eating honey to help with allergies is this.....
You get a little pollen in the honey, and it helps you build up the immunity to it. Just any honey doesn't work, but it does need to be local honey since it'll have the pollens from your area.

Beth

[Finsky]

The idea behind eating honey to help with allergies is this.....
You get a little pollen in the honey, and it helps you build up the immunity to it. Just any honey doesn't work, but it does need to be local honey since it'll have the pollens from your area.

Beth

No, it does not work that way. Allergy is such a system, that when you irritate person's immunological system, it over react. Some become resistant and others " hypersensitive.  I have never heard that some one try to medicate  allergy with honey, but we are many.

They are complex systems.  For examble I thought that I have too acid stomack. My boy is mecdice doctor and he  explained that stomach wall is full on histaminen cells. When I eat something allergic, histamine cells burst out and histamine burst the stomach acid cells. So during 20 seconds I get pain in my stomach and my nose began to leak and I get asthma like cough.

When I eat lime tablets or drink soda water, it neutralize my stomach and leaking stops. So it goes, but basicly very complex way.

For allergy they use antihistaminen, not honey. Also testing the origin of allergy is very good idea.

[Chad S]

Off Topic:

Finsky,

    I built a wood fired sauna a few years a go.  We are using a Harvia stove from Finland.  Nothing better on  a cold winter night than a nice sauna.

Chad

[Finsky]

Off Topic:

    I built a wood fired sauna a few years a go.  We are using a Harvia stove from Finland.  Nothing better on  a cold winter night than a nice sauna.

Chad

Well!  From sauna we have proverb " they came steam beaten out from sauna".

Also we have meaning "Steam beated" = a little bit fool

[beefree]

I got food allergy when I have made home wine ten years.

Please tell me your allergy was to sulfites or some similar additive and not to the wine itself? And are you making grape or honey wine?

[LEAD PIPE]

My son has been on medication for the past 3 weeks and his hearing seems to have returned. I don’t have any honey to give him yet; it’s more of a next year solution. I hope the honey helps somewhat I hate hate hate giving my kids any medications.

[Miss Chick-a-BEE]

Eating our honey helped my daughter with her pollen allergies, and it helped my best friend's daughter.

Beth

[Yarra_Valley]

I think it is worthwhile to visit your GP and get an allergy test to find out exactly what you are allergic to and how much you are allergic to it.

The conclusion i had come to was that playing with cats stiffer up my heyfever, dogs didn't, grasses were not too good, and dust was bad.

When I had my allergy test, it showed my ellergies towards cats and sogs very close but cats were just a bit higher. Grasses were about the same as cats. My allergy to dust (dust mites) was about 3 times as bad as it was to grasses.

It made sense because my allergies are worse at the end of summer when everything is dry and dusty, and aren't bad in the spring.

just my 2c.

James.

[2-Wheeler]

This is an old topic I'm ressurecting, but I just talked to my allergy specialist Doctor about this today and thought I'd share his words.

First he strongly advised against eating raw pollen. He quickly found a few medical journal references where a patient had consumed raw bee pollen and either died or nearly died because they had a strong allergic reaction.

He also confirmed what Finsky reported above. Allergic reactions are complex and to develop resistance to allergens requires very specific and controlled dosage of reactive agents over a very long period of time.  Pollen is the activating agent for rhinitis (hay fever), but not for food allergy, bee-stings or pet allergies and such.

He offered some hope that in the future we may see some type of refined pollen product that could be taken orally, but it is probably several years away. It won't be raw pollen that would contain an uncontrolled mix.  

He offered no opinion on the small pollen that remains in unfiltered raw honey from local production. It may be helpful, but benefits are very hard to quantify.

Finally, he offered this webiste as a useful resource for further research:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/

Of course, the best advice is see your own doctor.