It may look beautiful to look across the fields and see the bright yellow hues, but fumes given off by Britain's rapeseed crops can cause flu-like symptoms in some people culminating in headaches, streaming eyes, runny noses and chest congestion.
Because these plants bloom earlier in the summer they are causing some hay fever sufferers and asthmatics that live nearby to suffer earlier from mid-April to June.
Britain continues to expand rapeseed growth, producing just under two million tons of the crop each year. This can be compared to a few thousand tons in the early nineteen seventies.
Everybody is familiar with the heady smell of Rapeseed as you pass a field. It isn’t the pollen though as you would naturally assume. The National Pollen and Aerobiology Research Unit have carried out trials and they say only one in 25 people tested for rapeseed allergy actually reacts to the plant itself. The main culprit to the nation feeling awful is the gasses produced (volatile organic compounds) by oils in rapeseed when it comes into flower. The Scottish Crop Research Institute in Dundee ran a trial and discovered over 22 different VOC’s were given off by Rapeseed.*
So other than staying inside and sealing all the windows what else can you do to help alleviate some of these symptoms naturally without reaching for drugs and the medicine cabinet?
At Olcote Wellbeing, we take a holistic, natural approach to health and wellbeing and offer a soothing and restorative sinus massage to help stimulate the energy pressure points around the sinuses, increasing circulation of blood and lymph to help drain the sinus tubes, ease congestion, sinus pain and irritation. This also helps to reduce swelling under the eyes from the blocked sinus channels. In addition to this therapy we apply a thermal-auricular candle treatment to both ears. This therapy (dating back to ancient Greece) works on a ‘chimney’ principle to massage the ear, rising air then gives the ear drum a gentle massage which helps regulate pressure. The warming candle stimulates blood circulation and also enhances lymph circulation. This treatment is excellent for the symptoms talked about in this article such as:
· Headaches
· Hay Fever
· Sore Throats
· Catarrh
· Rhinitis
It is also very good for pre or post flight pressure, so if you are jetting away from the Rapeseed fields its still a good one to consider.
Want to know more? Get in touch with me today. Don’t suffer! Relax and enjoy the summer.
*- Source: Daily Mail 29/05/07
