If you live in Rapid City, you can’t help but notice the cottonwood this spring and summer. It’s been a particularly active season for cottonwood and other environment allergens. In fact, it’s literally in the air all around us, flying around like warm weather snow! Many of our patients and their families suffer with seasonal allergies and, for those affected by cottonwood, it has felt particularly brutal this season.
Did you know that Rapid City just officially topped 75,000 population in late 2017? That includes citizens who moved here from other places around the country and the world. Whether you relocated to the Black Hills from the East, South or Western part of the U.S. or, came here for job or military purposes or to be closer to family, it means that we’ve become a city attractive and hospitable to relocation. Our growing population also explains the housing boom in Pennington County, including all the new apartments under construction.
But if you grew up in a climate and terrain very different from Western South Dakota, you may develop seasonal allergies upon relocating here. This happens when you encounter pollen and other environmental factors that differ from what you grew up with. If you didn’t grow up surrounded by pine trees, you might develop a pine pollen allergy after moving to the Black Hills region. And if you did not live in a place with cottonwood trees as a child, you might be sensitive to cottonwood as an adult living in the Rapid City area.
Rushmore Family Chiropractic offers a full range of chiropractic and health treatment services to our patients and we want to be able to answer your questions and concerns. We’re getting a lot of questions about cottonwood season right now, including whether chiropractic care can help those who suffer from allergies.
While chiropractic adjustments don’t directly treat allergies or the immune system, they do remove interferences to your central nervous system. That will help your immune system function properly and fight off responses to invasive allergens. Chiropractic care is much safer and more effective than allergy medications, many of which actually produce very unpleasant side effects.
Your chiropractor will use spinal manipulation to align and open the vertebrae along your spine, which triggers the central nervous system to send a message to your lungs and airways to open the alveoli (the tiny air sacs in your lungs). This helps to clear your passageways and receive enough oxygen. Regular adjustments are shown to keep the symptoms of allergies at lower levels and some patients actually see a difference right after their adjustment.
If you live in a place as beautiful as the Black Hills, you want to appreciate Mother Nature and all the scenery around us. That can be difficult if you suffer with allergies. Rushmore Family Chiropractic would like to help alleviate your suffering. Visit our office and ask us about how we can help you get through cottonwood season!
