WGTS 91.9. Thanks for being here. It is Jerry and Summer. I love this time of year. Spring is amazing, but I know not everybody does.
Yeah. Well, I love spring, but I'm affected by allergies. And I like to be outside. You know, I love to play golf, and I've gotta carry a wet towel with me all the time and just cover my face with cold water.
You gotta stop from sneezing. But I still love being outside in the beautiful weather and the sunshine, but we've gotta deal with some of these allergies. Doctor Neil Roy, who's the chief medical officer at Adventist HealthCare at Shady Grove Medical Center, joining us now to break down why some allergy seasons feel different, you know, than other allergy seasons. And when should we start to be concerned about the spring allergy season?
Alright.
So doctor Roy, tell us, why do allergies feel mild one year and then a lot more intense the next?
Yeah. There are actually a couple factors that come to play. The first is the amount of allergens in the air. That varies by season, by type of flowers and plants.
Also, as we age, our body's responses to allergens change. So one year, your body may respond very well to ragweed. The following year, it may have a more pronounced response, making you have a worse season.
Okay. So when do spring allergies start to become a concern?
The major concern with allergies is if it's truly affecting your daily life. If you're unable to do things you enjoy on a regular basis, if you're finding difficulty breathing when exercising or exerting yourself, or if you're really being constrained and limited in your activities, you should seek medical advice. And especially if over the counter medications are no longer working for you, then you should seek someone else.
Give us some tips, doctor Roy, on how we can manage spring allergies better.
Yeah. That's a good question. The first big things that everyone should be doing, especially if you have seasonal allergies, are really to first practice good hand hygiene. Pollen and allergens go from your hands to your face causing a lot of your symptoms to be more pronounced.
Wash your hands regularly. The second thing is pollen tends to be the worst early in the mornings, so try to limit early morning outdoor activities. Change your air conditioning filter in your home regularly. I know when I first bought my house, I didn't do it for, like, a year, and I noticed my allergies were terrible.
Really try to make sure you do this every quarter, sometimes even more frequently depending on how bad your allergies are. At nighttime, really make sure to try and keep all of your windows closed. From night to the morning, allergists can come in the house, and then you can notice this in a more pronounced way. If you have pets, try and keep the pets downstairs while you sleep.
My dog loves being up in our bedroom and sometimes in our bed. If we have allergies in a given year, that'll make it worse. Also, try to shower before bed.
Allergens can typically stay in your hair, on your clothes. Take those clothes off, take a shower, put those in the laundry, and remove them from where you're sleeping, and then you'll notice your symptoms gradually improve. Try over the counter medications, things like Claritin, Zyrtec, cetirizine for the generic brands. Those will help. And then also try to look at your diet and try to make sure that if there are things in your diet that tend to give you a stronger immune response so say, dairy upset your stomach, but you love ice cream. One type of allergen can make the rest get worse as well to try and limit that during allergy season.
Okay. So he didn't mention, like, me wrapping a towel around my head with the water all over and pouring it out that way. Making it hard for me to breathe. Well, thank you so much, doctor Neil Roy. He's the chief medical officer at Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center. You can check out this Health Minute and others at our website, wgts91.9.com.
And of course, we wanna say thank you to Adventist HealthCare for sponsoring today's Health Minute.
