According to Local 12’s Liz Bonis, it’s not your imagination: People who don’t usually get allergy symptoms this time of year are reporting them to area physicians at St. Elizabeth.
Here’s what you need to know to feel better
The same plants that are making it beautiful outside this spring are making you miserable inside with symptoms such as itchy eyes, watery eyes, sore throat, or a runny nose.
Dr. Sofia Qureshi, a family medicine specialist with St. Elizabeth, says it’s likely that seasonal allergies are making you miserable. When you start to feel miserable, try to get into your health care provider right away. Otherwise, you could end up doing what’s called “chasing your symptoms” this season. To reduce those odds of that, Dr. Qureshi suggests allergy testing with skin and blood tests so you can get targeted treatments for what’s really bugging you when you are outdoors.
“Going through the allergy testing will really help specify these are the irritants, how to avoid them and then possibly having treatments for them,” said Dr. Qureshi. She added some of those treatments need to go beyond what you buy over the counter.
“Some prescription medications come into play, allergy shots come into play”” said Dr. Qureshi.
It also can help you know what steps to take to prevent problems as much as possible.
“We generally encourage avoiding the irritants,” said Dr. Qureshi. So avoiding means keeping the home and car windows closed if possible, taking a shower at night to get rid of the allergens and if you sleep with a pet, it’s going to be hard to get rid of allergens they bring in from outside.
Click here to watch Dr. Quershi, St. Elizabeth expert, talk to Liz Bonis on Local 12.
