It’s finally getting warmer, with temperatures more often above 60 degrees – perfect weather. But being outside can also have people sneezing more often, wanting to rub their eyes or even having some trouble breathing.
It’s allergy season. Every year in the spring and summer, 25% to 30% of people in the United States experience allergy symptoms due to their surrounding environment. And because winters are getting warmer and shorter, allergy season is starting early and allergens are stronger.
Signal Cleveland talked with Dr. Samuel Friedlander, an allergist at University Hospitals, to learn more about why plants and trees are so cruel to us in the warmest months of the year and how we can reduce some of these symptoms.
Freidlander also recommended checking out this interactive pollen allergy map, which lets people filter by state and type of allergen to find out what type of allergens are present in Northeast Ohio.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
What is allergy season? Why do our allergies get worse this time of year?
Certain people are predisposed to having allergic symptoms. This has to do with our genetics and our interactions with the environment. Some people have year-round allergies while other people have seasonal allergies, so those are people who are sensitized, or allergic, to pollens.
Currently, there’s some tree pollens out, which are causing a lot of allergy sufferers to be miserable with itchy eyes, sneezing, runny nose, congestion. Later in the season, there’s grass pollen. Tree season is from March until May. And grass season is from approximately May until July. Then there’s also weed pollens, like, for instance, ragweed, from August to September. It all just depends on the interaction between our genetics and our exposures.
Is allergy season getting worse in Northeast Ohio?
We’re noticing that spring is coming earlier. And so pollen season unfortunately seems to be earlier, a little bit longer, and probably also more intense than in the past.
What can people do to manage their symptoms?
The three ways in general that we treat allergies are avoidance measures, medications, and allergy shots or allergy immunotherapy.
Medications include over-the-counter and prescription medicines. That might include oral medicines, eye drops, and nasal sprays.
Allergies can affect asthma, so it could be asthma medications, and allergies can affect the skin, so it could be skin medicines as well.
Allergy shots can boost the immune system so that the body doesn’t respond to the allergen in the first place.
How can an allergy doctor help?
It’s helpful to see an allergy doctor or primary care doctor to talk about symptoms. They can help direct you with what’s the best way to treat symptoms and decide which medicines – over-the-counter or prescription – would be the most helpful.
Someone like myself, as a board-certified allergist, would also do testing. We would test and diagnose whether you have allergies to trees or grasses. And that helps fine-tune the therapies that are available.
We would also make sure that there’s nothing else going on that could mimic allergies. And then the provider would be able to come up with a treatment plan to help manage patients best.