Hypersensitivity To Smell And Allergies

Most of my endometriosis patients have a hypersensitivity to smell. Many of my patients, but not all of my patients with female diseases also have this acute sense of smell. If they walk down the detergent aisle, they can’t stand the fragrant smell. Smelling perfumes at church may give them a headache. They also have motion sickness if they go out in a boat in the open ocean or ride a roller coaster. These patients typically have multiple allergies. They may not be aware of the multiple allergies though. After being exposed to an allergies, their histamine and interleukin-6 levels are abnormally high.

They may be more sensitive to drugs than their peers. If they drink a cup of coffee in the evening or eat a small piece of chocolate, these foods may keep them up all night. They feel like their mind is racing. They have insomnia. If you were to give them a 500 mg dose of caffeine orally and then measured their blood caffeine levels 24 hours later, you would find their blood caffeine levels elevated compared to normal people. This would indicate an impaired ability to excrete caffeine. What this really indicates is that these patients have impaired excretion of all chemicals. Any chemical or herb that this patient absorbs either orally or cutaneously will have difficulty being excreted. This is why endometriosis patients can be so sick, any xenoestrogens that the patient absorbs have difficulty being excreted.

These patients typically have an abnormal Romberg test. A Romberg test is done by putting your feet together, standing on your tiptoes, and closing your eyes. If you cannot keep your balance and wobble, this is a positive Romberg test. You need to compare yourself to a healthy young teenager. As the patient’s health improves, the Romberg will improve. Another way to do the Romberg is to put the heel and toe together, close your eyes, and try to keep your balance.

In extreme allergy cases, the patient may be extremely allergic reacting to everything. They may have multiple allergies to food, car exhaust, new building materials, pesticides. Theron Randolf, MD, who chaired the allergy department at University of Chicago, made note of a syndrome called Chemical Sensitivity. Chemical Sensitivity has been in the scientific literature since the 1960s. Patients seemed to have many “hidden allergies”. These patients had various sensitivities that may be mediated by Type 2, 3, 4 cell immunity reactions. The normal skin allergy testing consist of pinpricks on the skin. These skin test allergy reactions are Type 1 reactions. Type 2, 3, 4 reactions are cell mediated allergy reactions and cannot be measured by a skin test. They can be measured by the ELISA test by Russ Jaffe, MD, PhD in Reston, VA. Randolf, MD would try to eliminate what he suspected were allergies to see if the patient would get better. In some cases, the patient would actually like the allergen.

There was one girl who really liked carrots. She ate them every day. Randolf, MD had her stop eating carrots for about 4 days. Then, Randolf, MD had her eat carrots. She then had projectile vomiting from the carrots. Randolf, MD observed that some patients actually loved the foods that they were allergic to. Eating them every day suppressed the allergy. Giving them a short vacation allowed the allergy to surface. You may read Randolf’s book, An Alternative Approach to Allergies. Randolf’s method of treatment was to find the allergen through a careful history and to avoid the allergen.

Janice Kiecolt-Glaser and Ronald Glaser professors of Ohio State University found that fear, stress, and anxiety made allergies worse. They tested 28 students with a history of hay fever and seasonal allergies. They were given a pin prick test on the skin to various allergens. They measured the level of redness and the diameter of the raised bumps (wheals) to the pin prick test. First, the participants were assigned to a low stress situation. The students were given the pin prick test. Then, the students read from a magazine and were asked to tape themselves reading aloud. The was the control action. The pin prick test was given again. There was a slight decrease in the wheal diameter.

On the high stress day, wheals were initially measured. Then, the students were stressed. The students appeared before several evaluators. They had to give a 10 minute video taped speech. They also had to solve math questions without a pen and paper. Then, they had to watch their video taped speech. The pin prick test was measured again. Wheals were found to be 75 percent larger compared to the wheals when they were not stressed in the moderately anxious students. However, in the severely anxious students the wheals were 100% bigger. Anxiety was measured with a battery of psychological questionnaires.

Futhermore, their increased wheals remained the next day when they were tested the next day. Gailen Marshall professor of medicine and pediatrics at University of Mississippi commented that these delayed reactions are typically unresponsive to antihistamines. Ronald Glaser measured increased levels of cytokines like interleukin-6 (IL-6) from lymphocytes from the students taken during the study. Glaser hypothesizes that the stress stimulated the increased production of IL-6. Catecholamines like adrenaline were also unsurprisingly also elevated.

The IL-6 and adrenaline were elevated the next day AFTER the stressor, and anti-histamines don’t affect them.[1]

Henry Wright of Pleasant Valley Church has been able to reduce or in some cases even eliminate allergies in some patients willing to work on their issues. He and his church teach forgiveness, getting rid of bitterness, anger, rage, and finally fear will reduce allergies. His seminars to get rid of fear, stress, anxiety are linked here. There are numerous patients that have successfully applied the techniques that he taught that claim that their hypersensitivity to smell and allergies have been much reduced in one week to several weeks. Others claim to have to work for 1-2 years on their issues to get rid of their allergies and hypersensitivity to smell. After getting rid of their stress, fear, anxiety, some patients claim that their ability to eat chocolate without staying awake is increased. Thus, it may be that their excretion rates have increased, and they will be less susceptible to xenoestrogen effects. Without the stress, they get rid of the xenoestrogens quickly, and the endometriosis, pms, and breast cysts will become less.

Notes:

1. Janice K. Kiecolt-Glaser, Ph.D.,a,d,g,* Kathi L. Heffner, Ph.D.,b Ronald Glaser, Ph.D.,c,d,e,g William B. Malarkey, M.D.,d,e,g Kyle Porter, M.A.S.,fCathie Atkinson, Ph.D.,d Bryon Laskowski, B.S.,d Stanley Lemeshow, Ph.D.,d,f,g and Gailen D. Marshall, M.D., Ph.D. How Stress and Anxiety Can Alter Immediate and Late Phase Skin Test Responses in Allergic Rhinitis. Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2009 Jun; 34(5): 670.