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| Photo from freethoughtsblog.com |
People with allergies have long known the weather conspires
to make their symptoms better or worse each allergy season.
It has to do with a variety of factors. Humidity, early
pollen blooms, mold and airborne irritants--all can help set off allergies,
depending on what you are allergic to.
And when.
It is possible that a general warming of the climate is
responsible for a potential early start to allergy season this year. Tracking
climate change is big news and will continue to be an issue of scientific and
political discussion for many years to come. But the fact of the matter is that
average temperatures across the globe continue to rise. Whether you believe
that is the result of natural causes such as sun cycles, or anthropogenic
(manmade) causes such as CO2 density in the atmosphere, does not really matter
if you suffer from allergies.
What matters is that you should prepare yourself for the
potential of early arrival in your allergies, a possibly more intense overall
season and a prolonged period of allergies at the end of the summer and fall--if
first frosts don’t come along.
That means today’s allergy season commences around March 1st
across much of North America. That’s when outdoor blooms typically begin in the
south. And northern climes are not getting off so easy these days either. March
2012 saw temperatures rise into the 80s over much of the central-northern tier
of the nation. Fruit trees and many other varieties of plants sprung into
bloom, releasing pollens into the atmosphere that in turn can drift for miles
until they hit your nose. Then boom, you’re sneezing and sniffling.
But don’t always assume allergies are the cause of your
misery. Common colds also seem to bloom in early spring, and differentiating
between your allergy symptoms and the common cold is important to begin
treatment if you choose that route.
For common colds, there are products that treat early onset.
These include zinc and echinacea, which are known to stifle the common cold
virus to some degree.
For allergies, having a plan of prevention is not
necessarily possible. But treating the symptoms and managing their degree of
impact is often critical. Physicians often recommend starting your allergy
medications before the allergy season actually begins. Having a “running start”
can help prevent a sudden slam of allergy symptoms.
Not everyone responds to medicines the same. Some people
become drowsy using medicines such as Benadryl. That can be a distraction at
work and a danger on the road. Newer allergy medicines do not have the sleepy
affect and are much better for people who are susceptible to becoming drowsy
from older generation allergy medicines. In any case, a consultation with a
physician is in order. There’s no sense experimenting without advice. That only
leads to a confusion of symptoms when you’re trying to sort out best options
for treatments. Better to have a plan in place and tweak it than trying to
change horses in midstream.
It is important to recognize that the allergy season is not
defined by some hard and fast set of rules that nature invokes to make you feel
awful. Much depends on when certain types of hardwood trees come into bloom, for
example. Already in 2013, the southeast has been hit by early blooms and
allergy season kicks in right then.
But a cold snap can send it back into remission, only to
come back even harder when the weather warms again and pollen counts rise to
intense levels. It’s almost as if nature is tricking your body’s defenses with
a short bout of allergies, weakening you against the curse, then letting up,
only to come back with a wicked spell of pollen that lays you low in late March
or Early April.
The simplest way to combat the dark side of Mother Nature is
to do what your physician says and start your allergy medications before you
really need them. That way nature can’t play allergy games with your head.
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