Itchy Eyes

I’m ready for spring to end. I love the warmth and flowers. I love the world turning green. What am I not loving? The tree pollen with the continual burning and itching in my eyes. The coughing. My plugged nose. When the pollen forms a yellow slick on the pond, you know it’s heavy. 

 

Is this Spring the worst pollen season ever? Well, that is hard to quantify, BUT “pollen seasons” in general are getting worse. According to multiple sources, including the Allergy and Asthma Foundation of America, global warming is leading to a quicker “last frost” in the spring, resulting in warmer temperatures earlier. This means tree pollen starts prematurely. Additionally, rising greenhouse gas leads to an increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. This increases pollen production, intensifying what the peak of allergy season feels like.

 When I was young, I had hay-fever in the fall, but that was it. We did not have over the counter drugs like Zyrtec or Claritin back then, so I mostly just suffered through it. 

 At some point in the last decade or so, my allergies worsened. They now start in the spring and continue into the fall. Maybe I’ve changed, maybe the world is changing, or maybe it’s both. I suppose living on the farm, as opposed to the ‘burbs, doesn’t help either. There are quite a few more trees around and farm activities can cause an increase in symptoms as well. For instance, if I am moving hay in the barn, I can guarantee I will have itchy eyes an hour or two later. The same goes for bush hogging our pastures, which is why I wear a mask and safety glasses while doing it. Driving a tractor through the field in early summer and watching the pollen billow in the air as the tractor bucket hits the grass is enough to give me a headache just thinking about it. 

 For the past month, I have seen the pollen drifting on the Fauquier Country roads, looking almost like snow. If you leave a car outside, pollen covers it by the next morning. Is that a new form of algae on the pond? No, just a yellow pollen slick from the nearby trees. Occasionally in high wind, you see it blowing off a tree, like a yellow/green dust storm. 

 

 I now take Claritin from March through February, and it generally does the trick. Unfortunately, that’s not true this spring. There were several days when the itching in my eyes became unbearable, and I took an additional half-dose of Claritin late in the afternoon. An hour later, relief would finally arrive.

 I also do other recommended activities to reduce pollen’s impact. I wash my face a few times throughout the day. I take my daily shower at the end of the afternoon to remove the pollen on my body. I burn the clothes I wore while doing outside activities. OK, I don’t really burn my clothes, but they all go straight to the laundry ;-). This year, at night I am also wearing Breathe-Rite strips on my nose to open the nasal passages and prevent snoring. 

I realize this is all a first world problem. The worst of the tree pollen season ends in late May and I already feel like my symptoms are beginning to lessen. Although grass pollen season will soon ramp up, it never bothers me the same way. Still, if I seem grumpy for the next couple of weeks, you might guess at the source of my discomfort.