Hay fever manifests respiratory and ocular allergy caused by pollen allergy and an allergic reaction to pollen in atopic individuals.
Acupuncture is a medical system that originated in China and involves stimulating specific areas on the body, known as acupuncture points. The stimulation of these points is usually done with tiny needles. Still, some different acupuncture treatment versions are using needles that carry an electric current and some using suction cups.
According to traditional Chinese theory, acupuncture points, meridians, channels allow vital energy to flow through the body. When the flow of Qi is blocked, disease occurs.
Western science cannot measure qi, nor can it find anything significant at acupuncture points, although many of these are over deep pressure receptors or close to major nerve endings. Some meridians roughly correspond to specific blood vessels or nerves but do not follow them exactly. On the other hand, acupuncture has obvious measurable effects, such as the release of endogenous opioids - the body's homemade painkillers.
The basic medical explanation of allergic reactions is that there are two types of cells in the body: mast cells and basophils, containing allergic mediators. When stimulated by chemicals, air pollution, sunlight and other environmental factors, a large number of free radicals are produced in the body. If the oxidation of free radicals is not removed in time, they will remain in the body. They will damage the cell membranes of mast cells and basophils, causing the cell membrane to degenerate and lead to cell instability. When the unstable cells encounter an allergen, the antigen and antibody react specifically, resulting in the detachment of the cell membrane and the release of allergic mediators. Allergic mediators can cause smooth muscle contraction, capillary dilation, increased permeability, mucus secretion and tissue damage, leading to an allergic reaction.
Just because these techniques are effective (or partially effective), this does not necessarily mean that traditional theories should be believed. This is true of any alternative medicine system, not just acupuncture. This may be because these techniques have been developed through repeated experimentation and the theoretical framework, while designed to explain how they work, is not the real explanation.
Few would deny that acupuncture is an effective system for altering the body's responses - the fact that it has had such an impact in producing localised neurological weaknesses that surgeons can operate on fully conscious patients is compelling evidence that it is a powerful form of treatment. Whether acupuncture is effective in treating all conditions is another matter.
Acupuncture is difficult to test scientifically because it is essentially an individualised treatment - a good acupuncturist tailors the treatment to you, rather than to your illness. The usual basis for a scientific trial is that everyone has the same diagnosis (such as hay fever or allergic asthma) and everyone in the treatment group gets the same treatment. This may not give acupuncture a fair trial.
Acupuncture for hay fever and asthma?
We know of only one trial using acupuncture for hay fever. The placebo group (needles inserted into any acupuncture point) improved to roughly the same extent as the treatment group. The results for asthma are more promising - acupuncture seems to help open up the airways and can even reduce airway inflammation, primarily if an individualised treatment is used.
Where acupuncture is used, it usually affects nerve impulses in some way and seems to do that.
Acupuncture reduces pollen allergy symptoms
Because there are nerve reflexes that control mucus production and swelling of the nose's blood vessels, it is not credible to suggest that acupuncture can help reduce hay fever symptoms. During the 1980s, American scientists also discovered tiny nerve cells that juxtapose with mast cells and may influence their behaviour. This unexpected discovery provided another way in which acupuncture could influence allergic reactions such as hay fever and affect acupuncture at a more fundamental level.
Acupuncturists insist that they can help hay fever sufferers, and many patients do report good results. Most acupuncturists say that five or six treatments are usually needed to maintain good results during the pollen season. Some patients receive only two treatments in the spring, but this is unusual.
