There has been a great deal of acceptance of the treatment of allergic reactions by the use of acupuncture in recent years in the West. Of course, in China, acupuncture has been used to treat allergies for centuries now. As is very typical in considering acupuncture as a treatment course, the underlying holistic approach to a medical problem comes into play. In Chinese Medicine, it is not the symptoms of the allergy that are the concern necessarily, but rather the underlying unbalance that is causing the body's own immune system to fail to control itself.
One of the most dangerous food related allergies in children is peanut allergy. It is suspected that as many as three in every one hundred children are effected by it. For some reason, its frequency seems to be increasing in developed countries. In about 20% of all cases, the allergy persists into adulthood, but in the remaining cases, the child tends to outgrow the condition as he gets older. The allergy to peanuts can be life threatening and can lead to anaphylaxis shock. Children that demonstrate this advanced condition are less likely to outgrow the allergy.
Can acupuncture ?cure? peanut allergy? The answer to this question is a little uncertain. There have been tests done on lab animals that show some encouraging signs. The bottom line is that acupuncture certainly cannot hurt. It is beginning to be more and more accepted to combine acupuncture treatments with other medicine regimens to attack specific conditions from every possible angle.
An acupuncturist will generally suggest the very same environmental and lifestyle modes of treatment as any Western practitioner. These usually involve the idea of avoidance of the substance causing the allergy. The big difference between the approaches still remains the idea that the acupuncturist is still viewing the symptoms as a signal from the body that something is amiss in the internal harmony of the body. The Western doctor will tend to concentrate on overcoming the effects on the symptoms when avoidance of the allergen is impossible.
The use of acupuncture in the treatment of peanut allergy is a bit controversial because of the potentially severe reactions and the fact that the allergy impacts children. The proper approach to it might be a very careful and controlled one that combines all methods of treatment. Acupuncture treatments are safe, and so attempting to control even such a widespread condition as peanut allergy is at least safe from the adverse side effects that often accompany chemical substances that are geared only toward symptomatic relief.
