Winchester Virginia man claims putting honey in his eye ...
Honey: A sweet treatment for allergies?
11/28/07
By Cecelia Mason
Studio lead: Honey has long been used for medicinal purposes and there’s a long held belief that eating local honey helps relieve allergy symptoms. But a Winchester, Virginia, man claims that putting honey in his eye helps clear up his allergies. Cecelia Mason reports Manuel Sempeles is working with a professor at the local pharmacy school to prove his technique really works:
Mason: Manuel Sempeles’ experiment with putting honey in his eye began about 15 years ago. The now retired Winchester businessman suffered from severe seasonal allergies. Sempeles was experiencing watery, itchy eyes while eating breakfast with a friend one morning when he accidentally discovered a remedy:
Sempeles: And all of a sudden my right hand with the little finger dips it into the honey and puts it in both of my tear ducts. For what reason I have no idea why I did this. And five minutes later the red just went out of my eyes, I didn’t have watery eyes, and even the gentleman with me said ‘my Lord, you have a, that’s a marked improvement from what you looked like.’
Mason: Now did you do this on purpose or was it an accident?
Sempeles: I think it was an accident really. :26
Mason: Sempeles applies a small dab of honey to the inside corner of his eyes on the tear ducts, then wipes it out almost immediately. He claims that by doing this every week or two, he controls the allergy symptoms that made him miserable for many years. Sempeles admits the idea of putting honey in your eye sounds kooky:
Sempeles: This is what I’ve done for many years. I couldn’t get anybody to talk to me about it they thought I was a crackpot so. Then I decided I was going to talk to Wendell Combest at the college.
Mason: What’d you think when he first came and said this?
Combest: Well I thought it was very curious and so I asked him if he really wanted to document it further. :18
Mason: Combest is a pharmacology professor at Shenandoah University who specializes in studying herbal and folk remedies. Combest agreed to do a pilot study on whether putting honey in the eye helps relieve allergies. Combest developed a questionnaire that lists 19 symptoms and asks participants to rate how bad they are:
Combest: OK, this is a typical questionnaire from one of our, the 20 or 30 subjects we’ve looked at. And In this particular one you see that, uh, had a variety of very unique symptoms. A lot of them were considered severe in the eyes, in terms of watery, itchy eyes. :19
Mason: Everyone participating in the survey was asked to rate whether the symptoms improved after 10 minutes, two hours and 24 hours of putting honey in their eyes. Combest says so far, most everyone noticed improvement. But he’s not convinced the honey itself is effective:
Combest: It could be just the, just the manipulation of the area. I’ve been looking into acupressure. There are certainly acupressure points around the eye that in Chinese traditional medicine they’ve uh, is associated with allergy relief. It’s intriguing. I’ve never, never heard a report where that brief of an exposure to honey has had any results like this. And that’s why I’m suspicious that it may be more of a mechanical. But there are things that come over from the nectar, plant flavenoids that come into the honey that could have biological activity that could be triggering the immune system or whatever. So I think anything’s possible at this point. :38
Mason: Combest says the next step in the study will involve finding an ear, nose and throat doctor willing to measure and document any changes from the honey treatment. For West Virginia Public Broadcasting, I’m Cecelia Mason in Winchester Virginia.
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