Sometimes even I can't believe that I treated my seasonal allergies successfully with just an onion...but I did.  It was early autumn in Atlanta, Georgia when I leafed through the pages of that thick opus of alternative medicine, The Swiss Nature Doctor. Although I was suffering from fall allergies, it wasn't an allergy remedy I was seeking. I was looking for natural remedies for sinus pain. Forever suspicious of allopathic medicine and hopeful that natural alternative remedies could help me, I was seeking a way to naturally treat the sinus headaches I was getting caused by the ragweed allergy season.

I was single at the time, so when I hit on the page suggesting an onion poultice, I didn't even blink. If I could stand my own smell, I was free to experiment with an onion poultice around my neck. I had high hopes. I'd always believed in the healing power of garlic and was intrigued by the idea that more than one herb in the onion family Alliaceae might have healing powers.

I waited until the weekend, then carefully prepared the onion poultice. After I'd mastered the technique of keeping the pieces of onion inside the cheesecloth, I placed the poultice around my neck.

The only way to describe the experience of wearing an onion poultice directly against your bare skin, mere inches away from your nostrils, is with one word: smelly. A crushed onion that's been aging for hours smells like nothing you ever want to experience, short of being in dire need of a treatment for my allergy-born sinus headache, which I was. Eager to try out this alternative cure, I wore my natural onion remedy to bed.

In the morning, I brushed old onion bits off of my bed and out of my hair. Then I took a shower, at which point I realized that my skin reeked of onion. (This smell was not to go away for another couple of weeks.) Despite this, and though my sinus headache persisted, I was determined to go the course. I prepared a new poultice and wore it most of the day.

I wore an onion poultice on and off for about three days, then went back to work. To my great disappointment, my sinus headache didn't ease one iota.

I returned to work, trying to keep from getting too close to anyone. My nights I spent wrapped in onion poultices. As time went on, I noticed I was feeling a little better. This floored me, since it wasn't my headache that was improving, but my sneezy, itchy-throat, teary-eyed hayfever allergies.

I'd suffered from seasonal allergies since I was a child, regular as clockwork, depending on where I lived. In the Midwest, where I grew up, my two annual allergy seasons were early summer and late summer, which made summer a pretty unpleasant time of year for me. In steamy Atlanta, I experienced slightly different allergy seasons, one in early spring and one lasting from late summer to early winter. That year, I had my first fall of virtually no allergies to speak of.

The kind of allergies I suffer are seasonal allergies, also known as seasonal allergic rhinitis, or hay fever. The American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology notes that over 35 million Americans experience hay fever.

What is hay fever? Hay fever is an autoimmune response--in other words, allergy--to allergens such as pollen and mold spores. If you've had sneezing, sinus congestion, itchy eyes, ears, nose or throat, or a runny nose after being outside or being exposed to pollen indoors, you may suffer from allergic rhinitis. 75 percent of American allergy sufferers are reacting to ragweed, according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. But there are other tree and plant pollens that cause outdoor allergies.

When your allergy season begins depends on where you are. Late summer is a common time for ragweed allergies in the southeastern and midwestern U.S., enduring until the first frost.

Medical treatment for seasonal allergies, once diagnosed with a scratch test or blood test, may include allergy shots, medicated nose drops and sprays, or antihistamines. Some of the newer antihistamines don't make you drowsy. Still, if I can opt for an alternative natural treatment over allopathic, I will.

I was so impressed by the results of my onion poultice that I boasted to my friends, family and work colleagues that I'd come up with the mother of all natural remedies for allergic rhinitis. And come March, after a couple of weeks of suffering returning seasonal allergies, I repeated the treatment. To my disappointment, this time the effect was minimal. I acknowledged that my "onion cure" for allergies was no cure, but merely simple coincidence. The pollen season must simply have been unusually mild the previous fall.

Still, that next autumn, I tried the onion poultice again...and to my astonishment, my very own herbal allergy remedy came through for me again! No hay fever, or at least, very little allergy suffering. That was when I made the connection--rather, one of two possible connections. Either the onion was "fighting" only the ragweed allergies of fall, and ineffective against the pollens responsible for my spring allergies, or the issue was timing.

I remembered reading about bee pollen and raw honey. Royal jelly, bee pollen and raw, unfiltered honey had, I knew, been touted as natural and effective treatments for seasonal allergies. Though I've never tried them, what I remembered was that their efficacy was supposed to hinge on whether you start taking them early enough in the allergy season. What if that were the missing link here?

Over the next few years, I experimented. Given my different living and working arrangements, it wasn't always possible for me to use the "onion allergy treatment," as I called it, each and every year. Even when I did, it wasn't always possible to treat my allergies within the first week of allergy season. Yet I noticed with amazing consistency that if I made myself a week-long barrage of onion poultices just a few days into a new allergy season, my allergies that year were far, far milder.

I have no idea why this particular natural allergy treatment works. I don't even know if it actually works, or if it's simply coincidence. Although I've tried to find research--any research--linking the breathing in and absorption of onion essence and seasonal allergies, I've found nothing. Since I'm not the superstitious sort, I'll buy the explanation of "coincidence"...intellectually. Emotionally, I have faith that it's truly a temporary cure for my hayfever allergies.

I love to treat my allergies naturally with onion. It's cheap, it's effective and (mercifully) it washes out of the linens and, with time, my skin's pores. It does, however, take a good week of living, breathing and sleeping the herb...and as I said, Allium cepa is not one of the appealingly aromatic herbs. It smells, and everything it touches smells, and family doesn't like that. Nor do workmates. I haven't actually used the treatment in a few years because of this...and my nose suffers as a consequence. And allergies are so fickle...they come, they go. If I try my natural remedy again and it doesn't work, I won't be surprised. But I won't be surprised if it does, either. Just grateful.

(Oh, and by the way, I did find a natural treatment for my acute sinus pain. It works almost every time. Only it's even worse than the onion treatment, so I only use it as a last resort. If there's interest, I'll post that article another time.)