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Karen Calhoun, allergist in Department of Otolaryngology

Posted on | March 2, 2011 | 1,267 views | Comments Off

What, precisely, is an allergy?
An allergy is an abnormal immune response to an environmental substance, usually a protein.

For example, when ragweed pollen is in the air, a non-allergic person breathes it in and nothing special happens. If a person is ragweed-allergic, however, small protein bits from this pollen meet up with a ragweed-sensitized immune substance called IgE. Most of these IgEs are found on the surface of cells called mast cells, which are filled with allergy-symptom-causing substances like histamine. When the ragweed pollen meets up with its IgE on the surface of a mast cell, the cell is stimulated to release these allergic mediators, causing the sneezing, stuffy-runny nose and itchy, watery eyes so familiar to allergy sufferers.

What are the common causes of springtime allergies, and how common are they among residents of the US?
Trees pollinate in the spring, so these are responsible for most allergy symptoms that are worse in the spring. About 20 percent of people in the US suffer from allergies — and about half of these are sensitized to at least one tree.

What are the recommended treatments for springtime allergy sufferers? Are some more effective than others?

There are three main ways to treat allergies: Avoiding the things you are allergic to, taking medicine to suppress the symptoms and using immunotherapy (allergy shots or drops) to make a permanent change in your immune system so that it no longer reacts to the environmental proteins it currently reacts to.

When you come in at the end of the day, changing clothes, showering and shampooing can remove pollen carried in on your hair or clothing. Washing the nose out with a salt-water solution using a Neti pot or squirt bottle can wash out pollen that can be sticking to the lining of your nose. Remember, too, to use a damp cloth to go over the fur of a cat or dog returning from outdoors.

Keeping windows shut minimizes the amount of pollen that enters the house.

Over-the-counter medications like Claritin (loratadine) or Zyrtec (cetirazine) also help control allergy symptoms. Nasalcrom is an OTC nasal spray that can also help. An oral decongestant like Sudafed (pseudoephedrine or phenylephrine — also found in Claritin D and Zyrtec D) can shrink the swollen lining of the nose, making breathing easier.

Although topical nasal spray like Afrin (oxymetazoline) can also help with this, using it for more than three days can cause rebound swelling, making you more miserable than you were to start with.

If these measures don’t help, talk to your physician about prescription medications — or consider consulting an allergist for allergy testing and maybe shots or drops if your symptoms are severe and bothersome enough.

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