Days missed at school due to seasonal crud have been reduced dramatically. One daughter has had no sick days this year. The other has been out a day and a half. This amidst the H1N1 outbreak and possibly the worst winter in our state’s history. And, this amidst a music rehearsal and class schedule that runs from 6:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. most weekdays, with all-day competitions on weekends. In other words, sleep has been at a premium. Typically, in past years, sick days might total a week to two weeks for each daughter.  

I know when they start college next fall, they likely will have a less demanding schedule than they did in high school. At least for their freshman year.  Yet, I’ll be pushing them to stick with EpiCor as well.

To view several published studies and papers on EpiCor, click here.

Now, the immune balance supplementation science seems to be bearing itself out with respect to my experience. If immune balance doesn’t help ward off seasonal cold and influenza, it may help reduce length and severity of symptoms. The eyes are 90% cleared up after 24 hours. The bronchial crud made a very visible appearance, but has since receded in the past 36 hours. A mild cough did not balloon into a incessant hack and is not next to non-existent. I have not spent 5 minutes at the toilet coughing up gunk each morning and night. I’m sure sipping a couple of pear martinis at the neighbors’ house when this was starting didn’t help things, but I’m sure it wasn’t a game changer either way.

As for my daughters, one half-day at home for one of them has been it. The other is symptom-free so far. And throughout it all, no fever for anyone.  All in all, I’ll take this scenario any day.

I was sitting next to two state economic development officers and two Iowa State University (host of the cloud conference) IT managers. We exchanged typical pleasantries and when it came my turn to tell what I do, I mentioned that I’m involved with a nutraceutical ingredient that has a steadily-building research portfolio showing how it imparts “balance” to the human immune system. What happened next seems to happen more and more, especially in the past 9 months or so. As they asked about their own health challenges and issues, and how immune health impacts them, they started writing down the immune balancer I mentioned (EpiCor) and how to get a hold of it.

The scribing gets especially furious when I tell folks that I, a lifelong ragweed/pollen allergy sufferer, have not taken a prescription or OTC allergy product now for two years. I don’t even mention my skating by two winter crud seasons now with only a scratchy throat and an extra nap here and there. Nor do I mention my baby boomer joints and muscles being able to handle a 6-month season (with 2 more months to go) of disc golf every 2 or 3 days with no inflammation-triggered arm or back strain.

This dialog is one sign of a growing interest in immune balance. This blog is now experiencing a 50- to 70-percent month-over-month increase in views, and is up over 1000 percent since this time last year. Wellsphere, one of the major online health portals, has added this blog to its “Top Health Blogger” roster.  Naturopathic physicians and wellness coaches seem to be seeking out online information on immune balance and the EpiCor ingredient (as has been confirmed to me by one of my Twitter followers). I think the concept of immune balance is forming a new cloud of its own… where information, consumer experience, research and movement of product all converge in a diffused, user-driven platform spreading across the country and in other global geographies. The only difference is that in addition to packets of data being stored and deployed, packets of immune cells are being studied, reorganized and redeployed for better health and quality of life.

They proceeded to grow at a very healthy pace. In fact they not only grew, they spread…wickedly. For the past 9 years, I’ve been regularly pulling up tree shoots from the ground, before they grow into real trees. My neighbors have been doing the same thing, pulling the invading tree shoots out of their yards, shoots that I inadvertently supplied them. I’m surprised they didn’t shoot me by now.

Now, I’m a bit more familiar with this proliferative plant: The Red Sumac.  While it does turn brilliant orange in early fall, it is more like a weed than a tree; a really big weed that spreads like wildfire.  I’ve also discovered another interesting factoid…the hard way. From time to time while mowing around the garden or pulling weeds, planting flowers, etc, I would brush up against the leaves of the sumacs. My arms or my face gently scraped against the leaves, and I didn’t think anything of it. That is until about two days later…when I began itching in those areas that came into contact with the sumac leaves. And the itching didn’t stop. It was intense and led to some poison-ivy like irritation. Ten days of calamine lotion and cold showers (to keep inflammation in check) later, it went away. From time to time, I would invariably forget to steer clear of those leaves, get a brush on the arm or face, and the whole mess would flare up again. Even pruning bare branches in the late fall, after all the leaves were gone, would still get a little itch fest going again.

Last summer, after having taken my immune balance supplements for six months, I forgot to wear long sleeves and a hat while toiling around the sumacs, and I felt the horrifying brush of those soft, green leaves again. A little irritation emerged, nothing major, and it was gone in a day or two.

This past weekend, I again got a forehead full of leaves. And absolutely nothing has developed. Not even a tinge.

Also, don’t confuse your garden variety sumac with poison sumac. That’s a different beast. Those leaves are more elliptical, not lance-shaped, and they are more potent.

A 1997 Univ. of  Mass. paper on skin irritation from poison ivy and related plants gives a nice overview of why people experience  severe itching and blistering from contact with these leaves. The basic reason: immune system over-reaction to something that, by itself, would be harmless. That’s the cornerstone of immune balance…or imbalance. The paper has a nice phrase that hits the nail on the head: “Allergy is an altered or unwanted immune response.”

Let me again emphasize that properly labeled nutritional supplementation is not meant–nor does it claim–to diagnose, treat or cure any disease or health condition.

And a first happened in our house. Both of my daughters began showing crud symptoms at the same time.  Of course, this is prime-time winter crud season at school. However, neither of them went to the doc to get antibiotics. I can’t remember when that had ever happened; being able to bypass the Z-Pack when both are under the weather. The severity/duration of their symptoms stayed in check. One stayed home from school one day (she’s been taking colostrum), and the other (on EpiCor) didn’t take a day off.

My other daughter, who with me, takes a daily EpiCor supplement, is in good shape, though may be showing a couple mild symptoms herself (a little throat scratch that started yesterday).  Meanwhile, at school, at least 4 of their friends have mononucleosis! What the heck is up with that? And they said strep is starting to make the rounds.

So far for me, nothing at all.  All quiet on the western front. My last discernible hint of any cold/flu-like episode was early last spring, when I was a little congested in the head and slept in until mid-morning one day.  That was the last of anything I experienced. My nutritional supplement regimen right now: EpiCor (500 mg); chromium picolinate (200 mcg); Vitamin D3 (1000 mg), lutein ( 6 mg).  No massive Vitamin C or zinc intake.

Over the weekend (2 days ago) I started getting that “throaty feeling.”  You know, where your throat starts feeling a bit swollen and a little further down, that scratchy, coughy sensation sets in. In the past, I could set my watch to the time when a full-blown bronchial congestion, cough, phlegm fest and possible laryngitis would come crashing through. So far, nothing of the sort. I’ve been drinking a bit more water in the past couple of days, and made sure I got a couple hours extra sleep yesterday and this morning (but I did put up my Christmas lights last night in the nice 60-degree Iowa weather, while listening to my boy Kurt Warner and the Cards lose to Ely Manning and the Giants). I’m now ending the work day, and Operation Scratch is going away. Heck, I might even have a beer tonight.  But not more than one. Alcohol is an irritant to soft tissue (as in a soar throat) and a diuretic, meaning it saps your body of hydration and dries out your system.  You need to retain fluids during the cold season.

So far I’ve overcome this early-warning condition twice this season. Not to mention my allergy experience this year was an absolute success. It was like my hay-fever allergies went away entirely while pollen count in this area was heavy.  

I have a wife and twin daughters. One daughter is taking an EpiCor-containing supplement, and so far she’s doing great. Her twin sister, on the other hand, even with EpiCor, seems to be extra susceptible to the winter crud. She’s had 8 sick days from school this year, complete with 3 or 4 doctor visits and 4 rounds of antibiotics. I’ve since tried having her take a bovine colostrum supplement. Too early to tell yet if it is making a difference, so we’ll wait out the winter and spring and see how it goes. However, she did make it though her latest bout with the crud by sleeping an extra day and needing no doc or prescription. Both my girls are conscientious about their diet and they do pretty well on getting a good amount of sleep.

Three days ago, my throat became the House of Pain as well. Today, it is dissipating and I’m going to be able to eat Grape Nuts and drink diet A&W Root Beer again. (And Templeton Rye, moderately). No special treatment on my end, other than my continued immune balance supplement regimen and trying to get to bed a little earlier than normal. I drank coffee throughout, which I probably shouldn’t do. Caffeine (and alcohol) is a diuretic, making your body “lose” more fluid than you take in. You need to drink and retain fluid to give yourself of fighting chance.

I got to wondering:  Are ragweed pollen counts in my neck of the woods down sharply this year for some reason?  Is that a reason why I’ve not been miserable?

I looked up the September pollen almanac on the Weather Channel for my area. The chart shows that so far this month (September 08), there have been 11 days categorized as “High” pollen, 6 tagged as “Moderate” and 1 with “No Report.” Weekend days do not appear to be recorded.

August ‘08 numbers were as follows:  6 Low days; 2 Moderate days; 13 High days.  Ragweed season onset is pegged for early August, peak is early September, and the ending period is mid October. So I’m not out of the woods yet.

The only difference in my daily lifestyle routine this season vs prior years is my daily immune balance supplement intake.  Am I missing something?

I began in Feb. 08 with a 500 mg EpiCor supplement daily. So, I’ve got about 7 months of that regimen under my belt. As you can see in my author profile, I take several other supplements as well. Plus, I just started in with alpha lipoic acid/acetyl l-carnitine as well.  My food/drink intake hasn’t really changed. I strive for a balanced diet, very little white bread/white starches and moderate alcohol intake (my success rate is, I’m sure, spotty on these fronts). My sleep is probably not the best. I’d love to get a solid 8 hours each night, but I’m more like 5 or 6, especially now that Thursday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday night football has started.

So, what’s the scoop so far?  I am experiencing next to no congestion. In years past, I wake up with a nose full of dried gunk, get in the shower each morning and have a 2-minute sneezing session, get out of the shower, blow my nose for another 2 minutes then pop a Clariton or Zyrtec. Taking an early morning walk was also a surefire invitation to another sneeze fest.

My only additional anti-allergy measures, beyond supplementation, is to prop up the head of my matress a few inches and also fire up a shot of saline nose spray before I go to bed. Throughout the summer and into Sept (as of today, Sept. 8), I have taken 1 Zyrtec a couple weeks ago when one morning seemed to be unusually bad.  My teenage daughters are at the other end of the spectrum: constant hay-fever congestion, with Zyrtec not doing a whole lot. They eat smarter than I do, but probably get even less sleep. I see a new nutrition approach in their future.

If you are working on an immune balance regimen, let me know your experiences. Comment here or email me at the contact page of this blog.