Hay fever? That's how you feel better!
What is hay fever?
Millions of Germans suffer from hay fever. That is, they respond to plant pollen (smallest pollen particles of grasses, trees and herbs in the air) with cold-like symptoms such as run cold. Peak season for pollen is from April to August, but earlier or later outbreaks are possible.
What are the symptoms of hay fever?
Many sufferers First, keep the symptoms of hay fever before the diagnosis for a cold. The following symptoms can cause hay fever:
- Strong sneezing
- Congested nose or runny nose (rhinitis)
- Itching and / or burning in the throat
- Bleeding and burning eyes
- Swelling of the mucous membranes, z. B. in the nose
- to cough
- Aggravation of skin diseases like eczema
Hay fever can also affect the lower respiratory tract like rhinitis and cause respiratory distress. In addition, hayfever patients have one increased risk of allergic asthma, because the allergy can also accumulate in the bronchi.
Therapy: What can we do to relieve grasshopper symptoms? Ten tips for the everyday hay fever-plagued people:
Bedroom - pollen shut out
For the bedroom: Pollen must stay outside! Therefore, you should change your bed in another room and leave the worn clothes there. Because pollen is attached and attached to jeans and T-shirt as well as to our favorite dress.
This can happen even when drying clothes in the fresh air. Anyone who can dodge a drying room should therefore prefer to hang the freshly laundered laundry there.
Airing - a question of the right time
If you want to do something good for your hayfever-plagued nose, keep the windows as closed as possible and lock out the pollen. Of course, you can ventilate anyway - but preferably only once a day. The best time for this depends on where you live. City people open the windows best in the morning between 6 and 8 o'clock, when little traffic is. In the evening: If you have hay fever, close the windows!
Those who live in the country ventilate the other way around, namely in the evening from 19 clock. But close the window at bedtime; because in the early morning, between 4 and 6, the wind whirls up the pollen. A pollen grid in front of the window helps to keep the pollen out. However penetrate through the fine material and a little less light and fresh air in the apartment.
Apartment - clean makes you feel free
With all due caution: Unfortunately it can never be avoided that pollen enters the apartment. Therefore: Every day wipe the floors or vacuum! The vacuum cleaner should have a fine dust or pollen filter, otherwise the pollen will not stay in the appliance, but will whirl through the whole apartment. Sofas and armchairs should also be vacuumed regularly. Even better: do not clean yourself, but let clean!
Unvarnished facts
The allergy makes us sensitive - that is why not only pollens irritate nose and eyes, but also other pollutants. Anyone who wants to do something good for themselves avoids cigarette smoke as well as the chlorine water in the swimming pool.
And even if it's hard: Do not make-up in the hay fever season. Eyelid line, mascara and Co. bring the eyes to tears. Take special care with hair spray and creams so that you do not accidentally get in the eye.
Pollen break on vacation
Flee the pollen - on vacation! You do not have to travel to the North Pole or into the desert for this: At the sea and in the mountains, you can treat yourself to a break from hay fever. By the sea, because the wind mostly comes over pollen-free water, in the mountains, because the pollen is carried by the wind not higher than at about 1600 meters. Additional plus: the better air! After all, there are far fewer exhaust fumes there than in the city. We have put together 9 short trips for the holiday of hay fever - from Heligoland to St. Moritz.
Wash away pollen
What good sleep and hair washing have to do with each other? More than you might think. Because the pollen get stuck in the hair, get to sleep on the pillow and can irritate eyes and nose. If you wash your hair before going to bed, it increases the chances of a night's sleep without allergic symptoms. Also treat your nose to a shower - and simply flush out the annoying pollens.
Nicely protected - with sunglasses
When it comes to hay fever, eyewear wearers have the advantage that the glasses make it harder for the pollen to reach the eyes. Everyone else can protect themselves with sunglasses. Incidentally, contact lens wearers should rather switch to glasses in the hay fever season because the pollen make the eyes sensitive.
Bus and train drive
Not a bit of green to see far and wide - and still: Busy roads are a hay fever trap. Because car exhaust gases make the pollen more aggressive. Instead of going on foot or by bike, it would be better to go to work by bus, train or car.
In the car window, filter in
When driving a car as well as in the apartment applies: All windows too! But even if you are driving with closed car windows, the pollen can catch you: through the ventilation system in the car. In contrast, pollen filters help in many new models fitted as standard.
If your car has no such filter, you can retrofit: The filters are there for little money, such as in the hardware store, and for the installation you do not even have to go to the workshop - with a little skill that is done in a quarter of an hour itself. Remember to change the filter regularly (at least once a year).
In the rain - out!
Who has hay fever, loves bad weather: Because after several hours of rain pollen allergy can finally go out without fear of runny nose and red eyes - the precipitate acts like a natural pollen filter. However: Do not run outside immediately with the first raindrops. Because they first press pollen from higher air layers towards the ground - directly past the hay fever-plagued nose.
Hayfever: The pollen allergy does not itch me!
Unfortunately yes. Every seventh is pollen-allergic, nevertheless, hay fever is still underestimated. How do you recognize him? and what can you do about it?
"My nose keeps running, is that a sign of hay fever or just a little cold?"
"If your eyes are itchy, there is some evidence of an allergy," says Dr. Jörg Kleine-Tebbe, Member of the Board of the German Society for Allergology and Clinical Immunology. In his Berlin practice, he also has the experience that People who permanently need nose drops are often unknowingly allergic to pollen and Co.
Dr. Christa Wilcke, ENT doctor with allergological focus such. For example, hay fever in Hamburg, advises: "Anyone who has more than 14 days runny nose, should at least be examined. Sometimes the doctor can tell by the mucous membranes if there is an allergy or something else is behind the chronic cold, such as chronic sinusitis. "
By the way: Even if 80 percent of allergies break out before the age of 30, It can also start in older adults with the pollen-induced hay fever and a cross allergy. Experts even assume that these late first manifestations are currently increasing.
"I went to the doctor, but the allergy test did not produce any results, and now?"
Allergy tests, such as the underarm prick test or the detection of IgE antibodies in the blood, just show a sensitization, a readiness for a pollen allergy, so to speak. From an allergy such as hay fever one speaks only when it also fit complaints. "The education of an allergy takes time," explains Kleine-Tebbe. "And the conversation with the patient plays a decisive role: What kind of complaints does he have, when do they occur, are there other allergies in the family, etc."
If the tests do not work, it just means that there is no allergy to the tested substances. But the list of possible triggers is long, so it can become a detective work, including finding the "wrongdoers". So it does not always have to be hay fever. "The problem is that this effort is not cost-covering for the doctor," says Kleine-Tebbe. "Unfortunately it happens again and again that allergy sufferers are dealt with too quickly." Dr. Wilcke then advises to agree with the doctor that after an inconclusive test further investigations are made at least in the next accounting quarter. Helpful to quickly encircle the allergen: log your symptoms before you go to the doctor.
Allergic rhinitis: "I get along well with funds from the pharmacy, but can I really take those permanently?"
"For all medications that you take over longer periods of time, you should think about the relationship between effect and side effect," says Wilcke. And though the Second generation antihistamines (eg with the active ingredient ceterizine) no longer make them as drowsy as older preparations, Tiredness and dizziness are still common in over-the-counter tablets.
Because hay fever often makes itself limp, it's really annoying. "But there are certainly means that make less tired," says Wilcke. "In addition, the drugs each have a different focus." In one, the eyes are particularly affected, in the other, it itches in the ears? and accordingly, different means are the best way to help. Another argument for an appointment with the specialist: He knows the range of medicines and can advise accordingly to find the right one. "As a patient, I would not want to try everything myself," says the ENT doctor.
"Does a pollen allergy like hay fever become more allergic over time?"
Not necessarily, but the risk exists. Responsible are, inter alia, so-called cross-allergies: The antibodies that have been formed against a particular allergen also jump to other proteins with a similar structure. Birch pollen allergy sufferers usually also develop reactions to other tree pollen and two-thirds of them to certain foods such as apples, other stone fruits, carrots, nuts.
Noticeable is the itching, tingling or swelling in the mouth. In the past, cross-allergies were even more rare. "Today they are the main reason for food allergies in adulthood," said Kleine-Tebbe. And even through the change of floors can be from an allergy more allergy, in the sense of more severe complaints, to permanent damage to the respiratory tract.
"Is there a chance my hay fever will go away by itself?"
This happens, but only in phases in which the hormonal balance and thus the immune system of our body change: for example during puberty, during pregnancy or during menopause. However, there is also the risk that it is the first time that allergic symptoms occur. "It is certainly not the case that allergies grow more and more, the older you get," says Wilcke.
"Could hyposensitization against hay fever make sense to me?"
Hyposensitization is the only causal therapy because the immune system through regular exposure to the allergen So z. B. the pollen? with weekly injections or the daily intake of drops or tablets? gradually learns to tolerate this. According to a survey, 70 percent are satisfied with the result of hyposensitization: on average, the need for medication and symptoms of hay fever and Co. are reduced by half, the risk of asthma is reduced or existing asthma can be alleviated. Unfortunately, hyposensitization does not work for a nickel allergy.
In addition, allergies do not spread so much afterwards. "Hyposensitization stabilizes the immune system so that it develops a general tolerance," says ENT specialist Wilcke. The guidelines recommend immunotherapy with allergens for moderate to severe symptoms of hay fever and other allergies. It is already possible with children and there is an upper age limit, unlike earlier, today no more. "Experience has shown that treatment works better if the number of allergens is manageable," says Kleine-Tebbe. Always required: the willingness to consistently continue the treatment over three years. "Nothing is as bad as a canceled hyposensitization," says Wilcke.
Video tip: Cold allergy: So extremely reacts a 21-year-old to minus degrees
