Allergy season is here — and it’s here with a vengeance.

I’ve had patients who never had allergies before start experiencing them this year for the first time — and if you’ve got the sniffles yourself, you already know exactly what they’re going through.

Thanks to a mild winter in most of the country, pollen was out in force earlier than ever — and new CDC numbers show just how much we’re suffering.

In March, close to 20 percent of people surveyed by the agency reported allergy symptoms. That compares to less than 15 percent in 2010 and 16.5 percent in 2011.

The numbers were so high the agency said they matched what we normally see this month, in May.

And in April, the allergy reports were up about 10 percent over the previous year.

Those numbers confirm what I’ve seen in my practice, as more people show up with allergies than ever before — including many who say they’ve never had so much as a sniffle in the past.

But let’s face reality here. Most people don’t even bother telling their doctors about allergies. It’s just too easy to go to the store and pick up an over-the-counter antihistamine.

Plenty of people take them, and some even swear by them. But they’re expensive, don’t work for everyone, and come with a potential for side effects ranging from dry mouth to drowsiness.

There are much better ways to beat allergies for good and help you breathe easy all year long. Here at my Stengler Center for Integrative Medicine, for example, we use homeopathic remedies to desensitize people to the pollens causing their symptoms.

It’s so much easier — not to mention safer — than allergy shots.

The homeopathic remedies allium cepa and/or nux vomica can help with the classic hay fever symptoms, such as sneezing and runny nose. For symptoms more in your eyes, I recommend a homeopathic remedy made from the eyebright plant, called euphrasia.

In addition, butterbur supplements have shown in studies to be as effective as some of the top-selling over-the-counter allergy remedies, but at a fraction of the price.

Sit, speak, and play dead — dogs can learn plenty of tricks, if you’re willing to take a little time to teach them.

But the best trick of all comes naturally: Pets can chase away asthma and allergies the way a guard dog can scare off burglars — and it doesn’t take a loud bark or a lot of teeth.

In fact, even a lazy old cat has this power — because kids born to mothers who had pets during pregnancy have lower levels of the IgE antibodies linked to allergies and asthma.

Researchers at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit tested those antibody levels in 1,187 babies at birth, six months, and two years, and found that the kids who had prenatal pet exposure had up to 33 percent fewer than children from petless homes.

The biggest benefit went to children of European, Asian, or Middle Eastern descent, who got the full 33 percent drop.

For black children, the difference was only 10 percent — but still enough to put them at least a baby step ahead of asthma and allergies, and that’s nothing to sneeze at.

Babies born vaginally to women with pets also got a bigger boost, with IgE levels 16 percent lower than C-section infants.

In other words, pets don’t always cause allergies and asthma — and they might even prevent them.

But while that means Spot can “stay” in homes with a new baby, there is one threat even the roughest, toughest Rottweiler can’t chase away: mold.

Having this stuff around the house could lead to a childhood of breathing misery.

Researchers examined data on 176 children who were believed to be at high risk for asthma because of a family history of the disease. They also used a test called the environmental relative moldiness index, which measures levels of 36 different types of mold to create an overall “mold burden.”

And that mold brings some burden. Kids from homes with the highest mold burdens were three times more likely to come down with asthma during the seven-year study period than kids with little mold exposure.

The researchers wrote in Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology that parents of kids at risk for asthma should make sure they find and fix water damage and get rid of all the mold — which is pretty good advice for everyone else, too.

It’s a breath of fresh air for asthma sufferers — and yet that’s all it is: Air.

Believe it or not, plain old air delivered via an asthma inhaler can actually bring as much relief as an inhaler filled with a common asthma med.

And that’s nothing to wheeze at.

Researchers asked 39 asthma patients to make 12 visits to a medical clinic, spaced between three and seven days apart, to try one of four treatment options at each visit: an inhaler with the drug albuterol, an inhaler with plain air, sham acupuncture, or nothing at all.

By the end of the study, everyone had tried everything three times. And after each treatment (or lack of treatment), the volunteers were given tests to measure lung function and asked to rate their level of improvement on a scale of 1 to 10.

The only thing that didn’t work much was no treatment at all — and even that left some patients feeling at least a little better, with an average reported improvement of 21 percent.

The drug, empty inhaler and sham acupuncture, on the other hand, led to improvements of 50 percent, 45 percent and  6 percent, respectively — a difference the researchers say was not statistically significant.

The drug did win when it came to more objective measures — it actually did a much better job of opening the airways, boosting lung function by 20 percent versus 7 percent for everything else (including no treatment at all).

But here’s the thing: The patients didn’t actually feel the difference — and that’s what really counts, right?

It’s not the first case of fake treatments leading to real relief: Other studies have shown that placebos can work for everything from pain to depression to stomach disorders.

One groundbreaking study found that placebos can even work when people know they’re taking one.

But for a condition like asthma, a placebo alone often won’t be enough.

Asthma is often triggered or worsened by weight, allergies (including food sensitivities) and stress — and if you can get all three under control, you’ll find yourself breathing easier than ever.

You might reach the point where you won’t need an inhaler anymore — even if it’s just an empty one.

I can’t think of anything less appetizing than a drink filled with thousands of worm eggs — but if it meant beating a serious and life-wrecking disease with limited options, I’d swallow it all without thinking twice.

I know — as far as the gross-o-meter goes, this one is off the charts… but a series of new studies finds that stomach worms can actually help defeat multiple sclerosis.

In one small study, four of the five MS patients who drank a solution of 2,500 pig whipworm eggs every two weeks for three months had fewer of the brain lesions that mark the condition.

In an upcoming study, 70 patients will let researchers infect them with hookworms. Instead of drinking eggs, these worms will burrow into the shoulder and wriggle their way to the stomach.

Both lines of research are promising, but there’s at least one big difference between the two: Your body will take care of whipworms on its own, but you’ll need de-worming tablets to flush out the hookworms.

So, of the two, it would seem as if the worm juice might be the better option — but I’m sure most MS patients would eat a plate live earthworms if it meant a cure for the disease.

I don’t think a trip to your doctor’s office will ever resemble an episode of “Fear Factor,” but stomach worms might be part of the mainstream care for this disease soon enough — because if earlier studies are any indication, the research under way now should get some serious results.

In one study out of Argentina just a few years ago, researchers compared 12 MS patients who suffered a parasite infection to 12 with no worms. Those with the worms had just three relapses over an average follow-up of 4.6 years
versus 56 among those without the parasites.

The worm patients also had less disability, fewer brain lesions as revealed on MRI scans, and measurable beneficial changes in the blood.

MS isn’t the only autoimmune disorder that you can worm your way out of. Other studies have shown that the creepy-crawlies can help fight Crohn’s disease and irritable bowel syndrome along with asthma and even some allergies.

These are all tough-to-beat conditions… yet some of the simplest creatures on the planet may be able to stop them cold.

That’s humbling… and yes, a little bit gross.