Allergies can touch your life in a number of ways — from minor annoyance to debilitating pain. It’s estimated that more than 80 million people in the United States have allergies, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). One out of 3 adults and one out of 4 children report having a seasonal allergy, eczema or food allergy.
Lindsey Braach, who is a Traditional Naturopath and Clinical Homeopath in Rapid City, is on a mission to help people feel better and change the way they view their allergies. “I want to encourage others to get curious about the symptoms they are experiencing,” she said. “Look at them as a red flag from the body and explore the deeper meaning. Instead of being annoyed by the allergy symptom, assess areas of your life where perhaps you need to change habits or support detoxification.” Sometimes, she said, people might need to also address emotional stressors, which can also be processed on a physical level inside of cells.
Black Hills Natural Paths
Lindsey has had a passion for holistic health her entire life. Her father is a Naturopathic Doctor in Idaho. “He raised me to honor my body’s symptoms as messages — to be curious about what my body needed and then give it more of the good,” she” “explained. That deepened when she had her own children.
“I was able to see the power of holistic health from a different perspective — it was powerful to be able to treat my own children at home, employing the principles I had learned growing up,” she said.
In 2022, Lindsey finished her education and in 2023, opened the doors to her own private practice, Black Hills Natural Paths. Lindsey now works with children, youth and adults and uses well-researched nutritional, herbal and homeopathic supplements to encourage the body’s inherent self-healing process.
“I’m really passionate about offering a more whole body perspective to health and wellness,” she said. Lindsey has noticed an increase in the number of people saying they feel like their allergies have worsened. There are several factors that could be contributing to that, Lindsey said.
“In the past 4-5 years we have been burdened with a lot of environmental toxins as well as emotional stressors (as a society),” she said. “I think that a lot of autonomic nervous systems have taken over and that has led to diminished immune systems that then respond more severely to allergens.” Lindsey cautions against constantly medicating allergies with pharmaceuticals. “Holistic health is about expression and addressing the symptoms at a root level to bring them out,” she said.
A Look at the Liver
One of the areas of the body she pays most attention to when working with patients is the liver, which is the largest internal organ in the human body, Lindsey said, and one of the most important when it comes to the discussion around allergies.
The liver is the body’s primary detox organ, Lindsey said. “It’s a true multitasker,” she explained. “Every day, it filters your blood, breaks down hormones, processes nutrients and neutralizes toxins from food, water, medications and even your environment.”
But sometimes the liver can get overburdened or sluggish, which can indirectly or directly lead to a diverse number of allergy symptoms. The first is toxic load and liver congestion.“When we’re exposed to more toxins than the liver can efficiently process, whether from processed foods, alcohol, chemicals, mold or chronic stress — the liver becomes sluggish,” she said. “This can lead to a backlog of unmetabolized substances circulating in the body.” An immune system can also get confused, Lindsey said, which means that an overburdened liver is impacting the gut and immune system. “Toxins that aren’t properly cleared may trigger systemic inflammation or immune dysregulation, leading the body to mistakenly treat harmless substances as threats resulting in rashes, hives, sneezing, congestion or eczema,” she said. It often leads her to guiding her patients to holistic support of the liver, so they experience less reactivity.
“When we support the liver through nourishment, hydration, mineral balancing, gentle detox practices and avoiding unnecessary toxic exposures, the body can process histamine more effectively, calm the inflammatory response and reduce allergic reactivity. This explanation of liver functions isn’t always what people expect to hear when they’re searching for answers about their allergies. Americans are bombarded with allergy medicine commercials, but those are geared toward synthetics that shut down or suppress the symptoms, Lindsey said. “They never actually address the root cause but rather, cover up the symptom,” she said. “Symptoms are our body’s way of asking for help and blowing the whistle that it is overwhelmed in some way and we need to change something.”