An Allergy Treatment That Worked but unbeknownst to us! In 1973 or 74, I became certified as an allergy technician (ASAT) and was working for ENT and Allergist, Howard Gottschalk, MD in Los Angeles. One day a man came in for his allergy shot and he had a paper sack inside of which was an empty small white plastic carton. There was no writing on the carton, but he told us that the lid, which he had discarded, had some writing on it.
He told Dr. Gottschalk and me that when he ate the ingredients of this white carton, he was allergy free for 2-3 days, even when he hadn’t taken our twice-weekly $7 allergy shot. I remember thinking that this carton could be bad for our business!
We asked him what it was and he wrote it down on a piece of paper for us. We looked at each other and asked if we had ever heard of it, and we both said, “no.” He said that his mother made him buy a few containers of it and recommended that he eat it for “health reasons,” which made Dr Gottschalk and I snicker a bit. I mean, come on, a white sticky food being used as a medicine to cure allergies? Like that would ever work! We never saw him again.
Although we didn’t 40 years ago, today I know that the patient’s mother recommended yogurt and in fact, it did bolster his gut health. By doing so, it was effective in treating his allergies. I don’t remember his name, but I do remember the influence that he had on my career. Food as medicine-and then he was gone! What a spiritual event!