Allergy season rolls into Florida: time for a sneeze

It’s like clockwork. We go into daylight savings mode and allergy season sets in.

This weekend, I was outside tweaking and pinching my plants. They were covered in yellow dust, also known as pollen. My hound Shadow was as usual attached to my own shadow. He follows me everywhere. After an hour or so of plant redeeming and tossing the football for my pup, I glanced down at him as we headed for the door. He too was covered in yellow dust. It took me about half an hour to comb and brush it out of his fur.

Pets are a major way pollen slips into your home. But there are other factors and an article at Web MD introduced me to a few I hadn’t thought of. For instance your spouse. We’ve all heard jokes about a spouse being allergic to her mate, but that can actually be true if your mate has a job whereby chemical irritants get on his clothing. Carpet is another offender, one reason we’ve spent months replacing all the carpet in our house with hardwood and tile. Of course, you also go through sniffles sometimes when new materials are put down in your house. And those plug-in air fresheners? Forget that. Those things drive my nose up the wall.

Pollen bothers me a little; a plant expert once told me hardwood trees are actually the worse offenders. I deal with it by using the saline nasal spray every night and by tolerating it. I never found an allergy med I could pleasantly tolerate, but then I tend to distrust most meds that aren’t essential to saving your life. In addition, I vacuum the window sills. In Northeast Florida, for much of the year, we can leave our windows open, another benefit of living here. Pollen of course gets on the sills.

I also confess I approach pollen head-on. It hasn’t killed me yet. I love being outdoors, so maybe tolerance develops over time. I read something surprising at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital site on the Web—allergic problems in the United States are the 6th leading common cause of chronic disease. Imagine the healthcare dollars spent on that.

If you have a tip for those suffering from allergies, do share.

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