Indoor Air Quality: Tips to Allergy-Proof Your Home
Did you know that indoor air quality can be up to five times more polluted than outdoor air? Mind blowing, right?! If your child struggles with allergies, we want to make environmental modifications to lessen their exposure as much as possible. Of course, we can’t cut down all the trees or dig up all the […]
Eczema and Asthma: Why Allergy Testing Is So Important
Did you know 50-80% of kids with eczema and asthma also have environmental allergies? So doesn’t it make sense to do some allergy testing to identify what they’re allergic to so we can strategically minimize their exposure? You might’ve seen one of my emails about the different types of allergens and why it’s key to […]
Allergies and Inflammation During Pollen Season: What Parents Need to Know
If you or your child have seasonal allergies it’s imperative to understand how allergies and inflammation are related – especially if you live in the southeast (North Carolina, to be exact) like I do. When it’s pollen season here, it covers EVERYTHING. This is unfortunate for me because people already accuse me of waiting too […]
How to Manage Allergies Naturally: Six Strategies
Early season pollen exposure can begin as early as February, and here in Charlotte, NC, it starts ramping up quickly by early March. If you or your child struggles with seasonal allergies (allergic rhinitis), understanding what’s happening in the body is key. In this blog post, I’ll explain the role histamine plays in allergy symptoms […]
The 5 Triggers of Inflammation: What They Are and How to Address Them
To some extent, we need inflammation in the body. (For example, an acute response to stop the bleeding if you cut yourself.) However, when inflammation goes unchecked, and the body keeps mounting an inflammatory response to the same trigger, it leads to chronic inflammation and disease. Integrative medicine teaches us that we need to look […]
Is Being Sick the New Normal? Inflammation’s Role in Recurrent Illness
50% of American children suffer from chronic illnesses—more than at any other time in our history. Check out these shocking stats… I talk a lot about inflammation in my book, Healthy Kids, Happy Moms. There’s a reason I keep coming back to it… inflammation plays a key role in our overall health (including how frequently […]
The ABC’s of Probiotics: Your Gut is like a Garden
A diverse and robust microbiome is critical to our overall health and immune function. Since 70% of the immune system resides in the gut, eating a diet high in fiber (vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds) and adding the right probiotics helps support that gut diversity. In my book, Healthy Kids, Happy Moms, I use a […]
Mold in Schools: How to Fight Back Against Environmental Toxins
Here’s a not-so-fun fact about mold… According to recent studies, up to 50% of schools in the U.S. have indoor air quality issues, which often lead to mold growth and contribute to exacerbations of asthma, allergies, and eczema among children.1 It’s definitely not an ideal situation, but no need to add a hazmat suit to […]
Food and Environmental Allergy Testing Part One
General pediatrics is filled with kids who have chronic runny noses, poorly controlled eczema and asthma, and many of them need allergy testing.
Asthma: Is Wheezing the First Sign?
When I know a child has an increased risk of asthma or any other type of inflammatory issue like allergies, constipation, or reflux, I look at the bigger picture and ask, How can I reduce this child’s overall systemic inflammation?
