4 Important Tips To Keep in Mind This Allergy Season

April showers bring May flowers. But those lovely blossoms and their kin often herald the season’s arrival with bursts of colorful pollen, which can feel anything but lovely in your body. Flowers aren’t the only culprits. In addition to grass, tree and floral pollen, mold spores floating through the air can also contribute to allergic rhinitis, the medical term for runny noses and sniffles.

Here’s what you should know about allergic rhinitis, and what you can do to survive your experience more comfortably.

What causes allergic rhinitis?

Seasonal allergic rhinitis is the annual downfall of more than 81 million sufferers in the United States, and the sixth leading cause of chronic illness nationwide.

Allergic rhinitis, commonly called hay fever, has little to do with fevers or exposure to hay. Instead, allergic rhinitis refers to an autoimmune response that develops when your body becomes overly sensitive to something harmless in your environment.

There are two categories of allergic rhinitis: seasonal, and perennial. Seasonal allergic rhinitis is most likely to develop or recur in the months when pollen and other allergens are airborne. Perennial allergic rhinitis, on the other hand, can happen year-round with exposure to triggers such as dust mites, cockroaches, mold, pet hair and dander.

Symptoms and consequences of allergic rhinitis

Both seasonal and perennial hay fever cause similar symptoms that may be all-too-familiar to you:

Left untreated, chronic symptoms can lead to sinusitis, brain fog from poor sleep, and an overall sense of frustration with the world (perhaps not a medical diagnosis, but a very real experience nonetheless).

4 ways to combat allergic rhinitis

When it comes to hay fever, the best cure is prevention. Limiting your exposure to trigger allergens is the most important aspect of minimizing your misery.

Whether you’re dealing with seasonal or perennial allergies, the answer is the same: The less exposure you have to your trigger allergens, the less likely you are to experience symptoms.

Here are some of the most effective ways of limiting your exposure and minimizing your symptoms.

1. Limit your outdoor exposure and shower up when you get home

If you suffer from seasonal allergies, try to limit your exposure to airborne allergens such as pollen during the worst weeks of the season. Perhaps that means hiring out the lawn mowing to a local service for a few sessions, or switching your daily run for visits to the gym for a few weeks.

Many weather channels post daily updates for local allergen levels such as mold, ragweed and tree pollen. Get in the habit of checking these reports, and avoiding outdoor activities on the worst day. If exposure is inevitable, make sure you shower and wash your hair as soon as you get home so that you can keep irritating pollen and other irritants out of your furniture, bedding and home environment.

2. Keep indoor areas allergen-free

Inside the house, your best defense is a strong offense, especially for perennial allergens such as dust mites and cockroaches. A good vacuum cleaner and air purifier can be your best friends in this war, helping you keep airborne triggers out of your lungs and environment overall.

If you have the option of getting rid of your carpets, consider switching to hard floors instead, which are easier to mop and clean. And if buying new mattresses isn’t an option, you can encase them in mite-proof covers that create a barrier between you and any existing dust mites that may already exist in your beds.

A dehumidifier can help you minimize the impact of mold in your home. But if you can smell mildew, consider hiring a trained professional to evaluate your home and help you take steps toward remediation if necessary. Black mold, in particular, can be extremely toxic and impact your home value and take a serious toll on your health even beyond allergies.

3. Manage your symptoms

If exposure is inevitable, you can at least make hay fever more bearable by staying on top of your symptoms. Over-the-counter medications are readily available in most drugstores and pharmacies, or you can ask your doctor for prescriptions that may come in stronger doses.

A nasal spray such as Flonase once a day during allergy season can help decrease your symptoms, coupled with an antihistamine such as Allegra or Claritin. You can also consider doing a saline solution sinus rinse to clear out nasal congestion and any residual pollen.

Managing your symptoms is important for your health as well as your comfort: Left unchecked, chronic allergic rhinitis can devolve into sinusitis, ear infections, respiratory infections and other illnesses.

4. Consider allergy immunotherapy

If you find your allergies getting worse every year, it might be time to see a doctor. Your primary care physician can recommend an ear, nose and throat (ENT) specialist or immunologist who specializes in treating allergic rhinitis, and may recommend you consider a series of allergy immunotherapy treatments.

Immunotherapy relies on controlled exposure to lessen your body’s reaction to trigger allergens. You may have heard of the infamous "skin prick" test, which utilizes a series of tiny needles dipped in various allergens to test your body’s reaction to a number of different environmental triggers such as pollens, dust mites and pet dander.

Check to see if your insurance plan will cover the cost of the test, because, based on your results, your immunologist may be able to create a custom treatment for you to take on a regular basis. Treatment typically takes place in the form of regular injections or oral drops.

Immunotherapy can take up to several years to complete, but the results can be well worth the effort, especially if your seasonal allergies come with expensive treatment or are miserable enough to impact your daily well-being.