Dr. Clifford Bassett explains how you can get relief from the worst allergy season in years.
As an allergist I have to say, its one of the highest pollen count seasons in recent memory, probably in at least ten years, but I think its probably the worst allergy season I’ve ever seen as an allergist.
There are clearly multiple reasons for the perfect storm, the worst allergy season ever. An over abundance of precipitation and rain in the winter and early spring everywhere, perhaps over planting of male plants in many areas and finally a lot of prolonged, dry, warm weather in the last few weeks in many areas where there wasn’t a lot of precipitation and rain to wash the pollen away. Pollen counts are at record levels, people are suffering and people coming in for their very first time from allergy symptoms whether it be itchy eyes, cough, asthma, wheezing, than ever before of all ages. So it really is the perfect storm and we are seeing a lot of suffering out there and that’s why people should get tested, see an allergist and have an individual action plan in place for proper treatment and again early treatment and pretreatment works better than if you suffer. So we want to pre-treat and identify people that have allergies treat them safely and correctly. Also we want to find out if you’re a candidate for allergy shots. Allergy shots are wonderful and can provide over ninety percent relief, long term to fix the allergy problem.
The bottom line is understanding your environment, checking your pollen count, weather forecast you plan ahead. If you know pollen is going to be higher 5 to 10 am in the morning you want to think about avoiding high pollen activities outdoors. Exercise indoors, pre-treat yourself with medications or wait until the end of the day when pollen counts are lower. Hot windy days pollen is stirred up those are high pollen days. When its rainy and drizzly counts come down, perhaps if you have outdoor activities save it for a drizzly rainy day and finally have an allergy action plan in place. Know five things that you can do right now to help you when the allergy season hits. They are sunglasses, taking your medications before you need them, washing wisely washing your hair, eyelids and nasal saline sprays to wash away the pollen before you come into your bedroom at night. Also avoiding fruits and vegetables this time of the year, particularly if you have a tree pollen allergy. Hazelnut, almond, apple, pear, carrot a variety of stone fruits can cause itchiness of the throat or oral allergy syndrome can really aggravate seasonal allergies. So as allergist have a variety of solutions and practical tips for preventing allergy symptoms, treating you if you’re unlucky to have allergies and finally learning if you’re an allergy candidate for shots or allergy injections to ultimately fix the problem long term.
We know because of global warming gasses and carbon dioxide in elegant studies done at USDA it tells certain plants to produce more pollen and perhaps the pollen releases faster and it may even be more potent and this may explain this pollen explosion not only here in the United States but throughout the world. The environment is changing and people who are allergically predisposed to be allergic are being exposed to large and large amounts of pollens.
The good news is that treatment is available, its safe, its effective and we can make them feel better pretty quickly, but allergy treatment is something we like to base upon testing and its simple, in office, easy to do, virtually painless test within 10 or 20 minutes can provide a really good snapshot if you have seasonal allergies what are the offending allergens and how to best treat them. Prevention, control measures, medications and finally allergy shots for people that suffer that really want to get the long term cure and the long term fix for this condition which is eminently treatable.