Hay fever Pollen fly earlier and earlier

Hayfever: Pollen fly earlier and earlier

01/19/2015

Sneezing, itching, cough: Anyone suffering from pollen allergy and hay fever has to struggle with the symptoms very early this season. Already in the middle of winter allergy sufferers the first symptoms. They react to hazel pollen that has been flying since December. The disease should be taken seriously.

Inquiries from allergy sufferers already in December
Already in January pollen allergy suffer from hay fever symptoms: tingling in the nose, itching of the eyes, constant sneezing. The Mannheim allergologist Professor Ludger Klimek reported to the news agency dpa: „There are people who say: My hay fever has just stopped at the end of November and now it starts again.“ As in the last two winters, the hazelnuts are very early this year. This is also evident in the German Allergy and Asthma Association (DAAB). There, the first inquiries from plagued pollen allergy sufferers arrived in December. „It looks like the first complaints have been made at Christmas“, such as the patient advisor Anja Schwalfenberg.

Pollen start earlier and fly longer
In the past, the hazel actually did not bloom until February. „There are more and more years in which the hazelnut pollen partly fly at the end of December, the very first in certain regions“, said Professor Karl-Christian Bergmann, allergist and board member of the Foundation German Pollen Information Service to the dpa. Thus, the Saarland and the Rhine-Ruhr area are among the first, Hamburg is always later than Munich. The birch is on average two weeks earlier off. According to Bergmann, 50 percent of the total tree pollen that causes hay fever in pollen allergy sufferers comes from the birch tree. For grass pollen, the flowering period was from late May to mid-July. The flowering time for herbal pollen such as mugwort and ambrosia, however, go longer until October, as the allergist explained. And the DAAB spotted blooming nettles until November.

Those affected have to struggle with their complaints for longer
The pollen information service, which has been measuring pollen count at 45 sites in Germany for 30 years, offers a free pollen app, which gives allergy sufferers a pollen forecast for their location. When users spend a few days on their personal sensitivity to pollen, they will be told how much they will respond to the pollutant load. The app is now used by 60,000 people. In the past, people with allergies often had symptoms for only four to six weeks a year, but the period during which sufferers struggle with their symptoms, according to the physician Klimek, is getting longer and longer: „The number of those responding to different pollens has increased dramatically.“ Patients who respond to a type of pollen tend to be at risk, as would other pollen. „It is ultimately a property of the immune response that the body over time to allergic reactions to more and more things“, so Klimek. This can make breathers shorter.

Allergies are often not taken seriously enough
Klimek sees three stages in those affected, who have complaints throughout the flowering period: First, a strong reaction to the first pollen, which then decreases a little, then it comes to inflammation in the mucous membranes. „Those affected then have additional headaches, a stuffy nose, irritated mucous membranes that feel like sore“, explained Klimek. However, according to a recent study, according to DAAB patient adviser Schwalfenberg, only ten percent of allergy sufferers are treated properly. Even doctors and health insurances often do not take allergies seriously enough. The expert, however, says: „Allergy is no triviality.“ If left untreated, asthma could result. Patients should therefore use treatment options such as so-called hyposensitization, in which the allergic reaction is to be completely overcome by regular contact with the allergens. To combat hay fever or to relieve the symptoms, also offer various methods of naturopathy, such as acupuncture, homeopathic remedies, Schüssler salts, the self-blood therapy, Bach flower therapy and hypnosis. (Ad)