Winchester resident Manuel Sempeles has discovered a natural remedy to the common allergies.

15 years during a rough bout of allergy symptoms, Manuel put a dab of honey in his eye.

He says that within a few minutes, his symptoms completely cleared up.

He spread the word, and his friends swear by this remedy too.

"Allergies, I mean my face was flushed, water in the eyes, sniffling in the nose, so I ate a piece of toast," he remembered.

"I don't know what it was, I took my finger and stuck it in the honey and put it in both my tearducts. To this day it has worked for me, cleared up for 3 to 4 weeks and that was the end of it."

Shenandoah University's J Dunn School of Pharmacy is looking into why this seems to work.

They plan on putting together a formalized study, using volunteers from the community.

They say that there is no harm in trying this yourself, as honey is natural and in a pure form.

However, they are interested to find out if it isn't the honey at all that is curing it, but rather a pressure point that is touched when the honey is administered.

"There's something special about the eyes," said Wendell Combest, pharmacy professor at SU.

"I'm not sure there's something special about the honey. Because there is such a brief exposure to it. Manuel told me there is a sting associated with it, it will sting your eye a little bit. Of course you are pressing into the eye. You could duplicate that with another substance other than honey and that's one of the things I'd like to look at somewhere down the line."