Sneezing, sniffling and itchy eyes
Fine, spring! But for those who suffer from hay fever, the time has come for sneezing, sniffling and itchy eyes.
This is how you distinguish hay fever from COVID-19 >>
1. What exactly is hay fever?
An allergic reaction to the pollen of grasses and trees and to house dust mites, resulting in nasal and eye complaints. The body’s immune system overreacts to these substances, which are harmless in themselves. Typical hay fever complaints are sneezing, sniffling, a stuffy nose, mucus that drains from the nose to the throat, and itchy, burning, and watery eyes.
Hay fever is caused by a combination of exposure and predisposition. If one of your parents has this allergy, there is a 30 percent chance that you will get it too (with two parents the chance is 70 percent). Incidentally, the term ‘hay fever’ is poorly chosen, because the condition has neither hay nor fever to do with it.
2. How does the doctor determine?
There are two ways to do this: with a blood test or a skin test. With the latter, the doctor drops a small amount of extract of, for example, birch pollen on your forearm. He then pricks a hole in your skin through the drop. If a red bump develops in that spot within twenty minutes, you know that you are allergic to that substance.
3. Is hay fever common?
A lot. It is estimated that 10 to 15 percent of the Dutch population suffers from it, or one and a half to two and a half million people. Most are allergic to various pollens and/or house dust mites, which means they have complaints for a large part of the year.
4. It seems that the hay fever season is getting longer and longer. Is that right?
Hay fever normally occurs from February/March to August/September. During that period, trees and plants that cause complaints bloom. But when the winter has been mild, the first culprits—the hazel and alder—sometimes begin to bloom as early as January. Then the complaint period is longer.
5. Do all crops cause hay fever?
New. In order to reproduce, plants and trees must spread their pollen. Insects take care of this in some crops, in others it is caused by the wind. These ‘wind pollinating’ trees and plants, such as birches, grasses and certain weeds (especially mugwort), are the main causes of hay fever.
6. Can you still get hay fever after 50?
Most patients develop hay fever between the ages of ten and thirty, but the allergy can also manifest itself later in life. Doctors don’t know exactly how that works. Most people outgrow hay fever on their own, on average between ten and thirty years after its onset. That is why there are relatively few people over 50 with hay fever. Doctors suspect that the immune system teaches itself, as it were, that pollen and house dust mites are not really dangerous, and that it is therefore not necessary to react so violently to them.
7. Are the complaints in the elderly different?
New. And the treatment is the same.
8. Why treatment?
Sometimes the symptoms are so mild that no treatment is needed. If treatment is necessary, it is usually done with medication. Antihistamines reduce the production of histamine, the substance that causes hay fever symptoms. Cromoglicates cause the cells involved in the allergic reaction to react less quickly. Corticosteroids inhibit the inflammatory response of an allergy. Which medicines work best depends on the nature and severity of the complaints.
9. Can hay fever be dangerous?
No, but the complaints can sometimes be so severe, even with medication, that you are less able to work because of it, for example. In that case, or if the drugs cause many side effects, immunotherapy can offer a solution. Patients are made insensitive to pollen or dust mites by slowly letting their body get used to it.
At weekly intervals, a doctor injects a little more of the allergy-inducing substance into the skin, until the highest necessary dose is reached. After that, the patient will need to be re-injected every four weeks for another three to five years. People with whom immunotherapy is successful (60 to 70 percent) and who complete the course have an average of 70 percent fewer hay fever complaints.
10. Do a diet or probiotics help against hay fever?
There is some evidence that some foods, such as probiotics, can slow down the inflammatory response in hay fever. More research needs to be done before doctors can give practical advice on it. Good to know: 30 to 50 percent of people with a pollen allergy also suffer from a food allergy, especially to stone and pome fruit (such as apples and peaches); Also known as cross allergy. This is because the proteins in it are very similar to the proteins in the pollen of, for example, birch and grasses.
Sources):
- Plus Magazine