Why do children get allergies and asthma? When your child’s body is exposed to triggers that the immune system perceives as danger or disruptive, it may over-react. The triggers are varied and sometimes several happen at the same time to make the perfect storm. Some known triggers are: food, mold, bacteria, pollution, chemicals, pollen, dust, and dander. The body’s immune response causes the symptoms we commonly refer to as allergies as well as asthma. The immune response can be mild or severe depending on the severity of the trigger.
From a naturopathic medical perspective, allergic symptoms are quite often associated with disruption to the gut microbiome or a leaky gut/inflamed gastrointestinal track. Other causal factors can be dysfunction of the stress glands, genetics, and altered immune health. At the core of a naturopathic approach to treating allergies and asthma, is uncovering the root cause of the immune systems over-reactive response. The idea is that, if we only mask the allergy or treat the asthma with medication to stop symptoms, we miss out on figuring out why the child is reacting in the first place.
Determining the cause of allergic symptoms including allergic asthma is at the forefront of a naturopathic treatment protocol and may involve laboratory testing combined with diet-symptom tracking as well as targeted diets.
If you are unsure if your child is experiencing allergy or asthma conditions look out for these most common symptoms: sneezing, coughing, itchy eyes, watery eyes, dark circles under eyes, runny nose, scratchy throat, rashes, hives, swollen respiratory passages, lowered blood pressure, breathing difficulty, and wheezing.
In order to determine why your child is having allergic symptoms testing is often a part of the diagnosis. It is confusing understanding allergy testing because there are so many different types available. True immediate allergy is measured in blood through IgE testing. This blood test can look for foods, molds, and environmental allergies. Often times this testing is expensive and may not be a first approach. IgE allergy testing also does not catch food intolerances, i.e. foods that may be triggering inflammation in the body but by a separate immune process other than IgE. Determining food intolerances is cost effective and simple to complete through a blood test or a skin prick/blood spot test. The down-side of this testing is that it is not as specific and sensitive as the actual blood allergy test.
My suggestion to most parents is to get their child tested and then if foods come back as triggers for allergies, remove the foods for a period of time and then re-introduce and look for the return of symptoms. This is not a good idea with a severe allergy such as to nuts and shellfish where the risk is anaphylaxis. Allergy elimination diets and then re-introduction are meant for food intolerances that show positive on a food sensitivity test.
It is in my experience, when a child has developed an inflamed gut, it begins to present as leaky gut, and anything that enters down the GI tract is subject to triggering the immune system at a heightened response. Leaky gut is essentially when the GI tract develops microscopic holes in the defense lining, allowing fragments of food, mold or bacteria into the blood stream. That triggers inflammation when the immune system recognizes these fragments as not part of self and thinks they are foreign invaders and mounts an attack.
In terms of asthma, sometimes, but not always, children are hard-wired to develop allergies to pollen and mold. This can end up driving inflammation, especially in the lungs. In these cases, a naturopathic approach would be to test for airborne allergies as well as foods. Remove the stimuluses as much as possible. This may include getting a HEPA air filtration system in the home, assessing the home for mold problems or other toxicants. Reducing stress from other triggers such as lack of sleep or too much sugar in the diet can also reduce the inflammation burden in the lungs and decrease asthma triggers.
Allergies and asthma in children (and adults) are the sum of burden on a reactive immune system. Understanding potential triggers to the immune response should be the focus of getting to the root cause of these conditions.
