Supplements for Seasonal Allergies: 2024’s Best Holistic Options

We made it through yet another winter slog, but we’re not quite safely in summer yet… So you know what that means!

It’s allergy season.

If they haven’t already invaded your sinus canals, just know that the sniffles, sneezes, and slime are well on their way. With the longer days of spring comes an influx of pollen, allergens, and irritants in the air so there’s no better time to fortify your defenses than right now.

Except for yesterday, of course!

Get up to speed on 2024’s best supplements for seasonal allergies before the mucus takes over your brain, and learn a little about what seasonal allergies actually are below. All that and more awaits, fellow sniffles sufferer, straight from Dr. Neal‘s science-backed holistic toolbox.

In This Article:

• What are seasonal allergies?
• The vital5 supplements for seasonal allergies
• Dr. Neal’s 2 favorite supplements for seasonal allergies

What are Seasonal Allergies?

Seasonal allergy symptoms come in a variety of flavors, each one uniquely uncomfortable and unappealing like:

• Sore throat
• Sneezing
• Itchy eyes
• Runny nose
• Coughing

These symptoms are the bane of many American’s existence — they threaten to ruin the spring season for around 60 million people in the U.S. alone.

Sometimes referred to as hay fever or allergic rhinitis, seasonal allergies are caused by pollen, mold, and other pollutants that get kicked up into the air by the spring winds. When these irritants enter our delicate sinuses, our bodies go haywire.

The symptoms we experience are, essentially, the body’s overreaction to foreign particles sneaking in. Histamine, a compound found in tissues and stored in mast cells, is the main character in this dramatic response.

Dr. Neal likens this relationship between histamine and allergies to that of a balloon filled with glitter and a needle. When a particle like pollen invades the body, it pops the mast cell like a balloon and poof! Histamine is released and spreads, sticking like glitter to every nook and cranny.

Avoiding histamine exposure can reduce the burden your body has to carry this spring and tamper your immune system’s reaction to allergens.

But you can’t live in a battered-up, pollen-free home forever — one of these glorious days, you’re going to want to open up the windows and bask in the sunshine.

That’s where supplements come in. We humans are far from perfect creatures and we can’t be expected to not roll around in the grass or admire a flower every once in a while.

So instead of living in a bubble, we turn to data-backed supplements that can drive down histamine levels and soothe seasonal allergy symptoms.

Learn More: The Comprehensive Guide to Holistic Seasonal Allergy Treatment

The vital5 Supplements for Seasonal Allergies

You should know by now that we don’t throw supplement suggestions around willy-nilly in these parts. In fact, Dr. Neal is constantly trying to get wellness seekers to take fewer supplements — it’s what makes him a great holistic health advocate and a terrible supplement salesman.

Instead of recommending every nutrient and herb under the sun, Dr. Neal highlights just 5 crucial compounds needed for optimal wellness called the vital5.

The 5 nutrients on this highly exclusive list got their spots by meeting three points of key criteria:

• They’re missing from our diets, even the healthiest ones
• They have a huge impact on not one, but multiple body functions
• They have loads of scientific data to back up their benefits

The most strategic route to whole-body health is getting adequate levels of these 5 things — omega-3, probiotics, bone support compounds, protein, and multivitamins. But, for seasonal allergies in particular, two of the vital5 supplements stand out.

Learn More: 5 Crucial Nutrients (Almost) All of Us Are Lacking

Vitamin D Supplements for Seasonal Allergies

Do we talk about vitamin D and its importance all the time on this blog? Yes. Is it entirely warranted due to the fact vitamin D plays an integral role in overall health? Also yes. 

Vitamin D affects multiple bodily systems — it wouldn’t be a vital5 if it didn’t! — influencing everything from cognition and mental well-being to bone strength and heart health. So it should come as no surprise that this humble nutrient also impacts your immune system and its ability to cope with allergens. 

Recent clinical research has shown a relationship between low vitamin D levels and allergic rhinitis, and that vitamin D may play a part in decreasing the severity of allergy symptoms by: 

• Affecting immune cells 
• Decreasing inflammation
• Improving lung function
• Supporting regulation of predisposing infections 

While the field of research around vitamin D is still expanding, there’s a good chance you’re not getting enough via your diet and lifestyle. In fact, 95% of Americans aren’t meeting recommended levels of vitamin D, according to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys. 

So, if you’re struggling with seasonal allergy symptoms, odds are you need a little more of the sunshine supplement in your life.  

Learn More: Vitamin D: Sunshine Supplement for Bones, Blood, and The Blues

Probiotics for Seasonal Allergies

Thanks to advancements in medical science, we now know that our gut health, like vitamin D, also affects our overall health in a major way. Does the phrase gut-brain axis ring a bell? 

Leading-edge holistic wellness advocates are pushing to redub this complex bodily relationship as the gut-brain-immune axis as we learn more about the consequences of poor gut health on the immune system. 

Contrary to popular belief, over 70% of your immune system is located in the canals and caverns of your gut. This means that most of the cells responsible for defending against illness and balancing inflammation are working to support your entire body from their station in your intestines. 

Probiotics can help improve the health of your gut microbiome by flooding it with beneficial bacteria, which in turn helps to create a more viable space for these immune cells to function properly. 

The beneficial effects of probiotics on diseases related to immune system issues, like IBS, infant colic, and some forms of cancer, has been demonstrated in clinical settings. And same goes for the role probiotics play in addressing seasonal allergy symptoms — a meta-analysis that investigated 22 different trials has shown that probiotics can both:

• Significantly reduce nasal symptoms during peak allergy seasons
• Significantly improve immunological and quality of life parameters

Excuse our outdated internet slang but it must be said: Probiotics FTW. 

Learn More: Be Proactive: How Can Probiotics Improve Your Health?

2 More Supplements for Seasonal Allergies and Symptoms

Once you’ve adopted a strategic supplement routine — á la the vital5 — and are paying special attention to your vitamin D levels and probiotic intake, it’s time to turn it up a notch with supplements like Allergy Support and Bronchial Syrup for stubborn allergy symptoms.

But before you dive in, remember that part of your strategy should focus on how you take your supplements, not just which supplements you take. So:

1. Start Early: Ideally, you’ll start taking your seasonal allergy supplements before the pollen season begins.
2. Stay Consistent: Exposure to allergens is near-constant during peak seasons, and your supplementation should be, too.
3. Focus on Quality: Some natural antihistamines, like nettle and quercetin, can contain heavy metals or other contaminants that do more harm than good, so always buy from a reputable source with rigorous quality standards.

It’s not always easy, but you’ll get a lot further in your journey toward relief from seasonal allergy symptoms if you follow these guidelines. And really, who wants to feel like a stuffed-up zombie with a concrete brain all spring?

1. Allergy Support — Dr. Neal’s Formula for Seasonal Allergy Symptoms

When we’re looking for heavy-hitting, all-natural seasonal allergy support, we always turn to Allergy Support — for obvious reasons, and for some not-so-obvious ones, too.

Allergy Support is Dr. Neal’s science-based, clinically formulated blend for combatting seasonal allergies. By using meticulously tested and crafted natural ingredients, like nettle and bromelain, Allergy Support works to heal the root cause of symptoms while providing fast-acting relief, too.

Besides the fact it works as more than a band-aid, we love Allergy Support because it:

• Combines food-based nutrients and data-backed herbal ingredients
• Offers multifaceted support with bioflavonoids, antioxidants, and enzymes
• Supports recovery from seasonal and environmental allergies

But be warned — when the sun starts staying out longer, our Allergy Support bottles start flying off the shelves. As one of the supplements that sells out most quickly and most often, Allergy Support isn’t just our top choice, it’s everyone else’s too.

2. Bronchial Syrup — Cooling Blend for Coughs and Chest Congestion

While slightly less well known than Allergy Support, Bronchial Syrup is far from being a sidekick. 

Formulated specifically for the cough and chest symptoms that make seasonal allergies such a huge pain, the Woodstock Vitamins team often refers to this herbal blend as our kitchen sink tincture. As in, we throw everything and the kitchen sink at your chest congestion and throat tickles. 

With a refined blend of both cooling and moisturizing herbs, Bronchial Syrup provides much-needed relief from lung and throat irritation due to seasonal and environmental allergies. Powerhouse compounds from plants like wild cherry bark, osha, and horehound do the heavy lifting while soothing herbs like slippery elm and licorice work to gently rehydrate your respiratory system. 

On top of that, Bronchial Syrup stands out from the crowd of OTC cough medications by: 

• Having 100% label transparency — what you see is what you get
• Delivering properly extracted herbs, free from solvents like hexane
• Providing the correct doses of all the herbs included 

Because you deserve a natural option for kicking that cough to the curb that’s, you know, actually natural.  

Easy, Peasy, Lemon-Sneezy

There’s a joke making the rounds on the internet that says seasonal allergies are just the Earth’s way of reminding us humans that we don’t really belong here.

We disagree.

Seasonal allergies are snot something to be taken lightly, what with the myriad of unpleasant symptoms they bring, but we can work with this aspect of being human instead of against it. How? By turning to scientifically verified supplements and wellness practices when the sniffles mucus want to give up entirely!

And if you need an expert to offer personalized guidance for surviving allergy season, well, you know where to find us. Our Counterside Consults are always open, always free, and always over the phone so there’s no risk of sneezing on a stranger.