If you live in the Scottsdale or Phoenix area and feel like your allergies have been getting worse, you are not imagining it. Allergy rates across the country have been climbing for decades, and Arizona’s combination of year-round pollen, persistent dust, and seasonal mold during the monsoon creates conditions that challenge even people who never used to have allergy problems.
For many patients at Above and Beyond Acupuncture, the allergies started mild and got worse over time. The over-the-counter medications helped at first but stopped working as well, or started producing side effects that made daily life harder than the original symptoms. They want to know why this is happening to their body and whether there is a different approach worth trying.
There is real research behind both the why and the what to do about it.
What an Allergy Actually Is
An allergy starts when the immune system mistakes a normally harmless substance for a threat. The body sees pollen, dust, mold, or pet dander and treats it the way it would treat an actual infection. It produces antibodies that stay alert to that specific substance. The next time you are exposed, those antibodies trigger the release of histamine and other inflammatory chemicals.
The symptoms that follow are the body’s defensive response to something it has incorrectly identified as a danger. Sneezing tries to clear the allergen out of the nose. Runny nose and watery eyes flush the system. Congestion swells the nasal passages. Itchy eyes and skin are the inflammatory response acting on the tissue. The mechanism is the same protective machinery that defends against actual infections, just aimed at the wrong target.
How Common Is This Actually?
The numbers are higher than most people realize. In 2024, more than 82 million Americans were diagnosed with seasonal allergic rhinitis. This works out to roughly 25 percent of adults and 21 percent of children in the country. That is one in four adults dealing with this condition.
The trend has been climbing for decades. Better tracking explains some of the increase, but environmental and lifestyle changes appear to be driving real growth in actual allergy rates. Pollen seasons are starting earlier and lasting longer than they did even twenty years ago. This gives the immune system more days per year to react and more opportunity to sensitize to new allergens.
For Arizona residents specifically, the picture is more complicated than the seasonal averages suggest. Dust is essentially a year-round issue. Pollen from desert plants peaks at different times than the trees and grasses in other regions. Monsoon season brings mold concerns that catch many residents off guard. And the dry climate that draws so many people to the Valley can itself irritate already-sensitive nasal passages.
Why Allergies Are Getting Worse
Several factors contribute to the rising allergy burden. Longer growing seasons produce more pollen for more weeks per year. Higher carbon dioxide levels appear to make plants produce more allergenic pollen than they used to. Indoor air quality issues from energy-efficient buildings can trap allergens at higher concentrations. Modern diets that drive systemic inflammation make the immune system more reactive overall.
Chronic stress plays a role that most patients have never been told about. Sustained cortisol elevation interferes with the body’s ability to regulate immune function properly, which can make allergic responses more intense and harder to settle. The full picture of the stress and cortisol connection is covered in What Is Cortisol and Why Do I Have So Much of It?. The broader inflammation context is explored in What Is Inflammation?.
The Limits of Over-the-Counter Medications
Antihistamines and decongestants do what they are designed to do. They block the histamine response or reduce nasal congestion temporarily. For mild seasonal symptoms, they work reasonably well. For patients with persistent or worsening allergies, the limitations show up quickly.
Antihistamines can cause drowsiness, dry mouth, blurred vision, and digestive issues. Decongestants can elevate blood pressure and produce rebound congestion when used regularly. Nasal steroids carry their own concerns with long-term use. None of these medications address why the immune system is overreacting in the first place. They suppress the symptoms while leaving the underlying pattern unchanged. This is why patients often find themselves needing more medication for less effect over time.
The Traditional Chinese Medicine View
Traditional Chinese Medicine has a clear framework for understanding allergies that maps onto what modern research is now documenting. The relevant patterns center on the Wei Qi, which is the body’s defensive energy that protects against external influences.
A healthy Wei Qi keeps pollen, dust, and other allergens from triggering an overreactive immune response. When the Wei Qi is depleted or distributed poorly, the body becomes vulnerable to the kind of repeated reactions that allergic patients experience. The Lung system in TCM governs Wei Qi distribution, which is why so many allergy symptoms show up in the nose, sinuses, and throat. The Spleen system supports Wei Qi production, and when it is weakened by chronic stress or dietary inflammation, the defensive energy thins out.
The full picture of how Wei Qi works and what depletes it is explored in Why Do I Keep Getting Sick?, which covers the immune side of the same framework.
The TCM treatment goal for allergies is to strengthen the Wei Qi, support the Lung and Spleen systems that produce and distribute it, and clear whatever pattern of internal heat or dampness is contributing to the inflammatory response. The approach addresses the underlying immune dysregulation rather than just blocking the symptoms.
The Food Sensitivity Connection
One factor that gets missed in nearly every conventional allergy workup is the role of food sensitivities in driving the inflammatory baseline that allergies sit on top of. A food sensitivity is different from a classical food allergy. It does not produce the immediate, dramatic reaction that a true allergy does. It produces a low-grade, ongoing inflammatory response that builds quietly in the background, day after day, often without the patient connecting their symptoms to specific foods.
For patients with significant seasonal or environmental allergies, this matters enormously. If the body is already managing daily inflammatory load from foods the patient is personally sensitive to, the immune system has less capacity to handle pollen, dust, or mold without overreacting. Reducing the food-driven inflammation calms the underlying immune state, which often translates into noticeably milder allergic responses to the environmental triggers that used to overwhelm the system.
The IgG food sensitivity test is one of the most useful tools for identifying the specific foods driving inflammation in a particular patient. The test measures IgG antibodies the immune system produces in response to specific foods, which is a different mechanism than the IgE response that classical food allergies involve. Identifying and removing the problem foods often produces meaningful improvement in allergy symptoms, energy, digestion, sleep, and the broader inflammatory picture. The full discussion of how the test works and what it can reveal is covered in The Many Benefits of the IgG Food Sensitivity Test.
What the Research Shows on Acupuncture
The research base supporting acupuncture for allergic rhinitis has grown significantly. A 2024 systematic review and meta-analysis published in the International Forum of Allergy and Rhinology examined acupuncture for allergic rhinitis and concluded that acupuncture is an effective treatment, with multiple randomized controlled trials supporting its use. A separate study found that acupuncture also reduced patients’ need for antihistamine medications.
The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health recognizes acupuncture as an evidence-supported approach for several conditions, with safety standards backed by licensing and accreditation requirements.
Acupuncture works for allergies by regulating the immune response that is producing the symptoms. Treatment shifts the body out of the chronic stress state that contributes to immune overreactivity. It supports the Wei Qi and Lung systems in TCM terms. It reduces the systemic inflammation that makes allergic responses more intense. Over a course of treatment, many patients find their allergy symptoms become less severe, less frequent, and easier to manage when they do occur.
Where to Start
If you have been dealing with persistent allergies that the conventional approach has not fully resolved, the next step is a clinical consultation that identifies the specific patterns in your case and develops a treatment approach designed for your situation. Combining acupuncture with the dietary work supported by IgG food sensitivity testing often produces results that neither approach achieves alone.
Reach out to Above and Beyond Acupuncture on North Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard in Scottsdale to schedule a consultation and find out what addressing your allergies at the level of the immune system could do for what you have been dealing with.
Schedule an appointment online or call us today to start your journey to relief.
