“Anybody can be allergic to any kind of pollen,” said Dr. Mark Jergens, chief medical officer at Marcus Daly Memorial Hospital.
Jergens said the most common pollens in the air right now are pine pollen, field grasses, hay grasses and dandelions.
Symptoms, according to Jergens, are more dependent on the person than the allergen itself.
“Everybody is different, and we know there is a genetic predisposition to the development of allergies or allergic reactions,” he said.
For example, Jergens said, if neither of your parents has any allergies, then your chances of having an allergy are 15 percent. If one parent has allergies, there's a 30 percent chance you could have them. And if both parents have allergies, there's a 60 percent chance you could have them.
“Everybody seems to have a threshold,” Jergens said of allergy symptoms. “Some people have no symptoms, some have mild and some have severe. It's all a matter of how much antibody IgE you make in response to an allergen.”
The immune system produces at least five kinds of immunoglobulins or antibodies, but the principal one that participates in allergic reactions is immunoglobulin E, or IgE.
“People develop more IgE in response to some things more so than others,” Jergens said. “But in terms of seasonal allergies, there's individual variation.”
One person may be more susceptible to pine than grasses while another may be more susceptible to weeds than pine pollen.
“But during this time of year, if you're outside, you'll likely be exposed to all of them, so that little individual variation doesn't become much of a clinical issue,” he said.
According to Jergens, people have varying responses to allergies, from itchy, watery eyes to stuffy or runny noses to lung issues and asthmatic symptoms. Others even get gastrointestinal symptoms most commonly associated with ingested allergens.
“In terms of seasonal allergies, typical symptoms affect the eyes, nose and lungs, and less often the skin and stomach,” Jergens said. “Most people have mild symptoms when they're outside for several hours or in the evening after having been out.”
There are many ways to soothe allergy symptoms, Jergens said. The first is avoidance to the extent possible.
“For example, it's not a good idea for people who have pretty significant seasonal allergies to be gardeners,” he said.
Jergens explained that most people are not nearly as symptomatic in the morning because they haven't yet had exposure time.
“Any outdoor activity you plan to undertake, do it earlier in the morning if possible,” he said. “If you can do it in a situation before it gets hot and dusty and the wind starts blowing, you'll be better off.”
Secondly, Jergens advised, if you have to be out in the field, take precautionary measures.
“I have mild seasonal allergies, and if I'm out cutting hay, I'm going to be symptomatic within an hour,” he said. “I wear a paper mask, like the ones doctors wear during surgery. Some people don't want to do that when it gets hot - it isn't very practical at times.”
Aside from limiting exposure time to allergens, there are a number of different medicines available to quell symptoms. The most common are antihistamines.
“There are a number of what we call ‘long-acting non-sedating antihistamines' available over the counter,” Jergens said, citing Claritin as a popular example. “What that does is it tends to block the release of the chemical that produces the symptoms.”
Jergens said antihistamines like Benadryl tend to be sedating, but there are many newer non-sedating antihistamines available, though they're more expensive.
He said for those whose main problems are nose and sinus congestion, antihistamine nasal sprays are available. Then, for more severe symptoms, there are anti-inflammatory hydrocortisone medicines that are available by prescription. Those can be taken orally, nasally, or by a shot.
“Let's say you're going on a summer camping vacation with your kids for a week and you know you have terrible seasonal allergies,” Jergens said. “Some people will get a cortisone shot. That's a longer acting shot to prevent many symptoms for a week.”
Jergens said some people use nasal inhalers and eye drops before outdoor activities as well.
Finally, people can even be desensitized to allergens to some extent.
“That involves going to an allergist,” Jergens said. “They test you for specific grasses and pollens and find out what you're most sensitive to. Then they give you a series of injections of a really dilute amount of that pollen and increase that amount over time to desensitize you.”
Jergens warned that it's easy to confuse allergic symptoms, especially involving the eyes, nose and sinuses, with a cold and advised people to seek proper treatment.
Aside from over-the-counter and prescribed drugs, homeopathic solutions to allergies also are available.
Matt Schlechten, N.D., is a naturopathic doctor who practices in Hamilton. He mostly practices detox methods, clearing his patient's bodies of environmental pollutants, food additives, coffee, cigarettes, mercury and more.
“As we're detoxing for other reasons, people are reporting that their allergies are going away,” Schlechten said.
He explained that overall toxicity hits two areas of the body, the neurological system and the immune system.
“The first effect on the immune system is allergies, and the second is autoimmune disease,” Schlechten said. “But in the early stage, the immune system is under some amount of stress. And allergies are like the straw that broke the camel's back.”
He said the body starts at zero toxicity and then the toxicity builds up to a certain point and hits a threshold.
“Once that threshold is hit, the body can't deal with it anymore and then you get the histamine response,” Schlechten said. “And that hay pollen or weed pollen was the last thing to hit, and the body just can't deal with it. Now you have a system under stress.”
But, Schlechten said, if you bring that total load back below the threshold, the same allergy would hit but you wouldn't get that histamine response.
“It doesn't matter what it is, whether it's seasonal allergies or food allergies,” he said. “I no longer fool with specific allergies. To me, they're all the same. You don't treat the individual culprit, you treat the overall person so those culprits don't matter.”
Schlechten said the ways to go about treatment might be a powdered supplement medicine, infrared saunas, extra vitamin C, or even an IV in a severe case.
“A lot of kids come in with allergies, especially those that are getting worse and worse every year,” he said. “What I see is an accumulated toxicity. We'll detox them for a month, and then they'll go two years with no allergies. If the allergies come back, we'll detox them for two months this time, and those allergies will stay away longer.”
Schlechten claimed his success rate is sky high, and said that most of what's available over the counter, as far as detox goes, isn't sufficient enough to do the job entirely.
“Detox done under the supervision of a qualified practitioner is where people are going to get the most benefit, moreso than trying it on their own,” he said.
Reporter Kristin Knight can be reached at 363-3300 or kknight@ravallirepublic.com
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