Do Over-the-Counter Homeopathic Allergy Remedies Work?

Some people find drugstore homeopathic allergy tablets take the edge off a mild, short season, and they are generally low-risk. They are not the same thing as classical homeopathy. A store product mixes several remedies for the average allergy sufferer, while a homeopath chooses one remedy for one person after a long conversation. The evidence for either is limited and debated, and the FDA approves neither. Below is how to read the box, who the store products suit, and when a consultation is the better use of your money.

What is in the box

Pick up any homeopathic allergy product in a Daytona Beach pharmacy and turn it over. The "Drug Facts" panel will list between four and a dozen active ingredients, each followed by a number and a letter. A typical one might read Allium cepa 6C, Euphrasia 6C, Histaminum hydrochloricum 12C, Sabadilla 6C, Solidago 6C. Each of those is a single homeopathic remedy with its own traditional picture:

• Allium cepa, from red onion: streaming clear nose that burns the upper lip, watery eyes that do not burn.
• Euphrasia, eyebright: the reverse, with burning, streaming eyes and a bland nose.
• Sabadilla: violent spasms of sneezing, itching in the roof of the mouth.
• Histaminum: diluted histamine, included on the theory that it addresses the allergic reaction in general.

The manufacturer puts them together so that one of them is likely to match whoever buys the box. That is the whole design. It is the opposite of how a classical homeopath works.

The fine print most people skip

Many of these boxes carry a sentence like "claims based on traditional homeopathic practice, not accepted medical evidence; not FDA evaluated." That wording exists because the Federal Trade Commission said in 2016 that over-the-counter homeopathic products must either have competent scientific evidence for their health claims or tell buyers plainly that they do not. Most chose to tell you. I would rather you read that sentence on the box than have me skip it here.

Two other points on safety. Higher dilutions, such as 12C and 30C, contain nothing measurable of the starting material. Lower ones, such as 1X to 4X, can contain real amounts, and that is where past problems have come from: the FDA has warned about some products in the past, including a homeopathic zinc nasal gel linked to loss of smell in 2009 and teething tablets with inconsistent amounts of belladonna. Neither was an allergy tablet, but both are reasons to check the dilution and buy from a reputable maker.

What the research says, briefly

Allergy is actually one of the more studied areas in homeopathy. A series of trials led by David Reilly in Glasgow in the 1980s and 1990s reported benefit for hay fever and allergic asthma compared with placebo. Large reviews since then, including Australia's national health council in 2015, concluded that the overall evidence does not show homeopathy works reliably for any condition. Those are the two sides, and you can read both. My own view comes from thirty years of watching individual clients over several seasons, which is not the same thing as a trial, and I do not present it as one.

Drugstore tablet or consultation?

Why one remedy instead of six

Two people can sneeze through the same October in Ormond Beach and need entirely different remedies. One is chilly, wants to be left alone, and her nose runs only outdoors. The other is overheated, irritable, and worse in the evening indoors. In a classical case that difference decides the prescription. A combination tablet cannot tell them apart, which is why it may help one of them and do nothing for the other.

Giving one remedy at a time also makes it possible to learn something. If six are taken together and the season goes better, you cannot tell which one helped, or whether the season simply eased. With a single remedy and a symptom diary, we can.

Where the season stands in late October

Ragweed has been in the air on the Volusia coast since August and usually fades in November, once the first dry cold fronts come through. Mold stays with us all year. Then, in January, oak, cedar and pine take over, the stretch I wrote about in why allergies are so bad here in winter. If a drugstore box got you through ragweed and you dread what comes in January, the gap between seasons is a good time to start constitutional work, since there is a quiet stretch to watch the remedy against.

For more on how the two kinds of relief fit together, read homeopathy vs antihistamines for ragweed season. The allergies page covers how I work, and you can find local details on the Ormond Beach allergies page.