Tips to defeat your allergies

With all the white fluff balls from the poplar trees floating in the air, and with the weeds growing like mad because of all of the rain we’ve been getting, seasonal allergy victims are being hit hard this summer.
It happens every year, but with the allergy relief that comes with the winter months, this re-emergence hits with a vengeance that always seems to be a little worse than before.
“Allergies are a big thing . . . they can cause a whole cascade of problems with the usual symptoms being itchy, watery eyes, a runny nose, fatigue, a little bit of a dry cough, and some post nasal drip in the back of your throat,” noted pharmacist David Schwartz, general manager of the Safeway pharmacy.
In general, he explained, allergies are an adverse and strong reaction to something the body comes into contact with that a person without the allergy would not respond to in the same way.
Seasonal allergies usually are responses to things like pollen, dust, grass, certain flowers, and even certain trees.
When people are hit with allergies like this, it is not life-threatening nor is it dangerous, but it can be very difficult and frustrating to cope with.
When their nose is stuffed solid and they really no longer can handle the effects of their allergy, people tend to visit their doctor or pharmacist looking for something to ease the pressure and their pain.
“With [allergy medication], the basic idea is to stop the allergy before it happens,” noted Schwartz.
“Probably one of the problems I see most is that they’ll come in and they’ll already have the allergies—their eyes are already red, their sinuses are closed, their nose is runny—and they want something to fix it right now.
“But if you take the medication [at this point], it doesn’t work as well because the cascade has already started,” Schwartz stressed.
“Step one has cascaded into step two, step three, step four, and since the allergy medication stops it at step one . . . it will have to finish up first on its own before the medicine takes into effect,” he explained.
To avoid this problem, and undue suffering, Schwartz recommends you find out what causes your allergic reaction and then get into the habit of taking the medication before exposing yourself to that substance.
“If you know you’re allergic to grass and you are going to cut your grass that day, then take the medicine that morning,” he remarked. “Same thing if you know pollen is going to be in the air like it is every spring, then take your medication before it happens.”
Schwartz noted a typical problematic situation also occurs when people come in with their sinuses stuffed solid and so built up with pressure that they can’t breathe.
He said that besides the inability to breathe, this also may lead to things like sinus infections.
Normally Schwartz would suggest at antihistamine for the allergy victim but when it becomes so bad that their sinuses are plugged solid, he has to give them a decongestant to start with in order to open up the sinuses so the antihistamine can even do its work.
For some, said Schwartz, allergies can be completely debilitating—preventing even the most avid outdoorsman from setting foot in their backyard.
Still, some of these victims just don’t like the idea of having to rely on taking medication every day for two or three months of the year. For these types of people, Schwartz would recommend trying such natural methods as saline rinses or neti pots.
These two methods work at flushing the sinus right out using a saline solution.
He stressed just squirting saline water into the nostril would not help because the stuffed sinus would just block it out. But using the structure of the neti pot or the saline rinse actually can be quite successful.
“You basically put one end into your nostril and with the neti pot, you actually tip your head to one side and the gravity actually draws it up into your sinus, over to the other sinus, and then out your other nostril.
“But it can be hard to do if you have a bad neck, so they came up with this other one—the sinus rinse—[which is] a squeeze bottle and the pressure forces it up, across, and down the other side.
“It goes down the back of your throat, too.
“I know it’s not pretty,” he laughed. “But I’ve done it myself and it’s not as bad as it sounds.”
Schwartz described another product where you shoot pressurized water from a canister into your nostril.
He believes all of these products are useful and helpful to people who don’t like taking medication because there is no actual medication involved with any of these methods.
However, the same with antihistamines, if you are stuffed solid, they just won’t work the way they are supposed to.
“You can’t use things like this if the sinus is already solid,” he noted. “There is nowhere for it to go. You are basically putting pressure on pressure.
“You have to have some breathe-ability for it to work.”
Schwartz said there are other products that are all-natural, but he would not recommend them. “As a professional pharmacist, if it doesn’t have clinical proof, I don’t like going with it,” he remarked.
When looking for the right method for your own seasonal allergy, Schwartz recommends you talk to your doctor or pharmacist because they will have a list of their other conditions and medications and so will be able to prescribe something that will not interact adversely.
If you already have the reaction to the allergy, it is not crucial to know what caused the exact reaction because each allergen has the same symptoms and they are treated the same.
It’s just useful to know so you are able to prevent the reaction in the first place.
In order to know for sure, allergy testing with your doctor will be required.