Handling hayfever

At this time of year, people sensitive to pollen will start feeling the familiar symptoms of hay fever. Ruth Morrow, respiratory nurse at the Asthma Society of Ireland, talks about what you can do to avoid an episode of itchy eyes and streaming nose

As a respiratory nurse with the ASI, my main job is to run the ASI Whatsapp service, where patients can send messages to us and we get back to them with help and advice. It can be about anything, but obviously at the moment, Covid-related questions are top of the agenda. The queries are about worries around asthma, but we are not an emergency service, so often when we get questions about people’s asthma getting worse, we advise them straightaway to contact their GP or the emergency services.

There is an intersection between hay fever and asthma; about 85% of people with asthma will also have hay fever. For those people, if they don’t manage their hay fever well, it can make their asthma worse. I describe asthma as a condition that can affect you from your nose to the bottom of your lungs, with hay fever being the one that affects the top of that respiratory system – we call it the ‘one airway disease.’

The other interaction that people often don’t think about is eczema or dermatitis. They are similar to the kind of irritation you get in your lungs with asthma, so those two conditions are closely related.

Now, some children, especially babies, get really bad eczema, but it does tend to get better as time goes on. However, some of those children would actually develop asthma. Similarly, you can develop hay fever any time of your life.

There is now enough researchers that says some people will develop hay fever first and then asthma over time. So I would advise people who get hay fever to keep an eye on your chest and if you do get chest symptoms, talk to your GP about it because you could be developing asthma, or it could be a couple of years down the road.

Depending on the time of year, different pollen will be in the air. So from March to May, you have lots of tree pollens around. Then coming into summer, you will see more grass pollen, especially when people start cutting grass. A particularly difficult one that we have been talking about a lot recently is birch pollen, which can be in the air from quite early in the year.

Finally, in September and into autumn, you have moulds and spores in the air.

Not all of those are going to bother everybody; for some people, the allergen that affects them can be very specific.

So the first thing you do in March, if you know that pollen is going to affect you, is to get a plan in place and get on antihistamines. It’s too late going on them after the problem has started.

Get onto your antihistamines as soon as you can. You can get them over the counter at the pharmacy and then if they’re not working for you, you need to speak to your GP about other solutions – there are lots more now available.

After that, when you start doing things like going outside for a walk, make sure you wear wraparound sunglasses to keep the pollen out of your eyes. Put some Vaseline on your nostrils to trap pollen before you inhale it. If you like to dry clothes on a washing line, make sure to shake them well before bringing them into the house. If you’re outside for prolonged periods of time, you should have a shower and wash your hair when you come in, to wash away the pollen.

Limit how long you have your windows open: it’s best to have them open early in the day when the pollen count is low and then close them in the afternoon as it rises.

Generally, avoid exercising whenever the pollen count is high. Where possible, avoid places with lots of grass on dry and sunny days or when the grass has been cut recently. For children with hay fever, an issue can be playing sports on grass that has just been cut, as lots of pollen will be released into the air. They should have a spot of Vaseline on their nostrils and make sure they take that antihistamine beforehand.