I’ve dealt with spring pollen allergies with cross-reactivity, oral allergy syndrome for the last 10 years. Recently, I began supplementing with liposomal vitamin C and collagen. A few days into it, the pollen allergies completely stopped and haven’t returned, and it’s still in the middle of allergy season. Unfortunately, I am new to functional medicine and have no blood work or test. What am I to understand is happening?

Dr. Amy Nett:  Okay. You’re just saying your allergies improved taking vitamin C and collagen, and so the mechanism of action of vitamin C and collagen— I mean, vitamin C is immune support. Collagen, I honestly don’t generally use specifically for allergies. I don’t know exactly what the magic was there for you, but liposomal vitamin C can certainly improve the immune function, so it is possible that you are having an immune imbalance that was supported by the vitamin C. College can help with gut health, so I wonder if there were some degree of intestinal permeability that was improved by collagen. This is that this is a fantastic response, so not something really that I have you know seen with a lot of patients in terms of just using vitamin C in college and then their allergies improve. Allergies tend to be a little bit more difficult, at least in the group of patients that I work with. But that’s fantastic, and maybe it’s just been that you’ve improved gut health to some extent and supported the immune system with the vitamin C. That’s how I would put that together, but again it’s not a typical response.