I’ve been doing really well all summer, but these past few days my hayfever has spiked sharply and really caught me out since I’d already stopped my antihistamines, it knocks me out and can make me dizzy and sick.

It's normal for me to get a spike in September and into October, but this year it's hitting early. My understanding is that the drought has essentially started autumn early and actually increased grass pollen—stressed plants release more pollen.

On top of that, mold spores are at their peak. Dry weather helps many varieties spread (even though others need wet weather), so if you're struggling right now, it's safe to assume dry spores are the culprit.

This season feels like a last, stressful blast of summer growth, especially since a lot of people assume allergy season is over when it most definitely is not.

Also as it seems to have started earlier that means it will end sooner also this first blast should calm down.

Hope this helps anyone else currently suffering!

I used to joke a bit about people with pollen allergies. Not in a particularly mean way, but definitely in the way you do when you have absolutely no idea what something is like. Then sometime around my early 20s, I apparently became one of them.
And I can get pretty horrible symptoms. At the beginning of a bad period I can sneeze constantly, feel completely wiped out and sometimes cough up absolutely ridiculous amounts of mucus. The latter also happens when I get respiratory infections, though, which makes the whole thing even more confusing. Sometimes it’s obvious that something is going on, but less obvious whether I’m allergic, getting sick, or both.

I’m fairly convinced I have pollen allergy. There was a physician involved, my symptoms are very typical, and antihistamines help quite noticeably. But the actual assessment was incredibly brief. I described what was happening, was told it sounded like pollen allergy and got a prescription. The advice was essentially to start taking it when the season approaches and then take one tablet a day as needed, up to two. It was written on the prescription. And that was pretty much it. I didn’t even have to talk to someone in person.

I’ve asked physicians I know whether it’s strange that I never had allergy testing, and they’ve basically said no: plenty of diagnoses are made based on anamnesis/history, and if the history is typical of pollen allergy, you don’t necessarily need allergy testing. Pollen medication is also prescription free, meaning that it’s more about having to pay less.

I understand that. I’m not looking for a test because I need laboratory proof that my sneezing is legitimate. But several years later, I still feel like I have remarkably little idea what my allergy actually is.
I don’t seem to have one obvious pollen season. I seem to get symptoms during birch season, then grass, then mugwort. I’ve moved a bit further south in the country, and this summer in particular has felt endless. It feels as though I’ve been allergic to something for most of the summer rather than having one clearly defined bad period.

So I take antihistamines, get much better and eventually think, okay, surely I can stop now. Then it starts again. I check the pollen forecast and sometimes the levels are only low to moderate, and then I start questioning everything. Am I really sensitive even at those levels? Am I actually allergic to birch and grass and mugwort? Is there something else in the environment I’m reacting to? When I’m coughing up loads of mucus, is that part of the allergy or am I coincidentally getting an infection?

What makes it even stranger to me is how much allergies seem to vary over time. I barely have any problems one year and then seem absolutely destroyed by pollen another year. Some people seem to develop allergies they never had before, while others say theirs became much milder as they got older. That’s also basically what happened to me in the first place: I went from being someone who could joke about pollen allergy because it was completely irrelevant to my life, to suddenly having quite significant symptoms as an adult.

So part of me keeps wondering whether this is just what my immune system is doing right now. Could I be much less reactive again in a few years? Could how generally run-down or well I am affect how badly I react? Or am I now simply a person with multiple pollen allergies and this is what spring and summer are going to look like?

There’s also a slightly ridiculous thought I keep having: what if I eventually get allergy testing and it turns out I’m not sensitized to birch, grass or mugwort at all? I’ve spent years looking at pollen forecasts and apparently diagnosing myself with an allergy to half the plant kingdom on the basis of one very short medical assessment.

Again, I’m not really questioning whether physicians can diagnose pollen allergy from the history even though advanced apparatuses might fool me into thinking that it’s more valid. I understand why testing isn’t automatically necessary. I’m more confused about how you’re supposed to understand the pattern when you seem to have symptoms across several pollen seasons and nobody has actually established what you react to.

For those of you who developed pollen allergies as adults: did yours appear fairly suddenly? Do you react to several different types of pollen and basically have symptoms from spring through late summer? Did you ever get tested, and did knowing the specific allergens actually change anything? And most importantly, have your allergies remained fairly stable over the years, or do they genuinely come and go or vary dramatically in severity?

So I’m a 20 year old college kid and I’m going though a lot. I have super severe allergies that leave me so lethargic and tired all the time. I’ve considered stopping showing up for myself cause I don’t have friends and it’s just been hard because I will have sneezing fits and runny nose even with doing saline rinses when I get up in the morning, which includes neti pot, and 3x a day take Flonase, as well as prescribed dosage of Zyrtec at night. I was on allergy shots for 4 years 2x per week and it didn’t help and my allergies still got worse. Im losing hope. I will sneeze everyday at least for an hour or two (maybe not straight but like a 20 min attack at one point and then when I’m eating another 35 min fit of rapid uncontrollably bad sneezing and a super stuffy but runny nose and itchy watery eyes). I’m allergic to pollen of most trees and grasses, a lot of flowers so many I can’t even remember, ragweed, dust, cats, horses, mold, rodents, certain product chemicals, etc.

In addition at college, I don’t really have friends and have been teased because of the fact that I am sneezing multiple times a day for hours straight even sometimes when it does get bad. I’ve never sat in the dining hall with someone else besides my roommate occasionally and I am always alone in the corner, usually sneezing uncontrollably because I’m so allergic to the outdoors and my campus is old and there’s a lot of dust potentially given the buildings are old. I just want someone to be my friend because I have a feeling no one sits near my corner because they’re tired of me sneezing my head off most days. I always feel bad that my sneezes are so desperate but I stopped trying to hold back til I get to my dorm because I just can’t help it. It’s happened in class too several times and I’ve had to miss a lot of class because I usually step out and run to an empty hallway or the bathroom. Even in my choir as a music major, it’s been hard to find friends due to the allergies (which aren’t super receptive to medicine unless it’s medicine that makes me sleep), and the faculty are mostly nice but I still get embarrassed.

Please help me, I am really hurting it feels like a cry out for support and love because I don’t have anyone who does it for me. It’s hard. Especially if you’re around my age. I know it’s a long shot but does anyone else struggle so badly with allergies that the only medicine that stops it is medicine that makes you super tired and sleepy? Please help me out guys, I’ve gotten so badly depressed about it and terrified of going to school in a few weeks.

Since late June/early July this year, I've had the most irritating tickling sensation in the back of my throat that is incredibly difficult to ignore. I've been taking fexofenadine hydrochloride since the beginning of June. I was coughing and hacking so badly about a month ago that I needed throat soothing sprays and a lot of mental effort to prevent myself from coughing. It's less so now, but I still have that tickle in the back of my throat and a feeling of everything being glued up. Seen about 6 GP's and pharmacists who all have said that my throat is fine (I had pharyngitis about two weeks ago but I completed the antibiotic course for that, and the most recent GP which I saw, told me that it's all cleared up), but that tickle still persists!!! Is this still hayfever? Or maybe a post-infection cough? Or maybe even the fact that the air in the UK is so dry at the moment, I don't even know anymore

I have moved to a new city. I never had allergies before. I think I am experiencing allergies. My ears hurt/stuffy. Sinus pressure. Head heavy. Kinda feel weird when I am walking. Sneezing. Lots of congested nose. Tight neck. What do your allergies feel like? How do you know if it is allergies or something else?

Hi guys so I found out that pollen is negatively charged and was wondering - what if you wore a negatively charged magnet on your shirt that creates a repellant force field around your face. Wouldn't that stop hay-fever for good. What are your thoughts on this?

Hello!

Question for you all to see if you believe I’ve worsened allergies or something else. Of course not asking for medical advice.

Age 30, and have had fairly mild seasonal allergies since college (for last 10 years or so). I usually take a daily loratadine or nothing at all.

This year I noticed my allergies were slightly worse as summer started so I started taking fluticasone propionate here and there.

Fast forward to end of July, and I suddenly had what seemed to be much more severe allergies. My nose was dry and clogged, but no cough or sneezing, mucus was clear, and I had trouble taking a deep breath.

Teladoc called it hay fever and provided azelastine HCI which has helped but I’m not 100% still after a week of usage. Perhaps that’s just how it is.

Does this sound like hay fever to you? Is there another specialist I should go to?