Symptoms of Seasonal Allergies

Video Transcript

"Hi I'm Dr. David Hill, and today we're going to be talking about symptoms of seasonal allergies. When we talk about allergic rhinitis, which is the runny nose, stuffy nose, and itchy nose that we get with allergies. We often divide it into seasonal allergies, which come from pollen, come from leaf mold, or come from other things that are in the air only at certain times of year. Versus perennial allergies, which may be due to pets, house dust, cock roaches, cigarette smoke, or other things that you are likely to encounter at all times of year. Seasonal allergies vary widely in different parts of the country, as there are different plants that blossom at different times. There are millions of different kinds of pollen that people can be allergic too, and some people may not have had allergies in one part of the country. Move, and suddenly discover that they have relatively severe allergies. Leaf mold is another problem you will notice that especially whenever leaves fall in your part of the country, and if there has been rain you will notice humidity will make those go up. Now allergies don't just occur in the nose as we talked about. You can also get itchy, swollen, runny eyes, you can get asthma attacks involving the lungs, where the smallest airways of the lungs tighten up, and where there is mucous and fluid secretion, and over growth of the muscles. So that's probably the most dangerous and life threatening of all the seasonal allergic symptoms. You can even get skin allergies, like eczema or urticaria. The key of course, is that you can sort of predict which time of year you are going to be worse off. If you have seasonal allergic rhinitis, you probably can just treat during that season. You don't necessarily have to worry about taking allergy medicines year round. That said, if you have seasonal allergic rhinitis you may well become allergic to something that is present all year, and need to take the medicine for more than just the spring or the fall when you are the most likely to be affected. Talking about seasonal allergic rhinitis, I'm Dr. David Hill."