My hay fever suggestions are not to be sneezed at

To make issues worse, hay fever is having a bumper yr, according to statistics from the Royal University of Basic Practitioners. The quantity of situations has more than doubled given that last summer time, with a 5-fold rise in just the previous fortnight.

I have, I’ll admit, tried every little thing. The only remedy is to hunker down and wait for the sun to stop shining.

From a single desperate sufferer to one more, right here are my six leading guidelines for surviving the summer time:

Dress in sunglasses at all instances

There is some thing extraordinarily posturing about sunglasses on an overcast day. But if you are as sensitive to the pollen count as me, you don’t want that poisonous dust anyplace near your eyes. After an eye is itchy, it stays itchy.

Beg your GP for more powerful medication

I am writing this dosed up on every single medicine offered, from eye drops to medicated tissues. I get Claritin in the day, Piriton at night and Beconase steroid nasal spray as regularly as it is legally achievable. This good deal typically holds the worst of the symptoms at bay.

But last week I took the dog for a walk through the fields and came back wheezing. “Is it urgent?” asked our wonderful GP when I named for an appointment. “No, no,” I gasped. “It’s just that I can’t breathe correctly. Neither can my eight-yr-outdated,” I added. Oscar and I turned up together and were prescribed a blue inhaler each and every.

Stick red lights up your nose

Some scientific tips: the item Medinose utilizes red light – which acts on the membranes of the nose – to reduce histamine production and soothe irritation. My good friend Hannah, a fellow sufferer, insists it is a wonderful help.

Two tiny cattle prods emit red light, which you hold just under the nostrils till the sniffling stops. It looks beyond ridiculous, but I have ordered one particular.

Apply Vaseline about the nostrils

This “catches” the pollen so it does not fizz straight up the nose. It also gives relief to red-raw skin – often so sore that even silken hankies come to feel like dragging sandpaper across the encounter.

Professional sprays for itchy eyelids

Optrex Actimist allergy drops had been launched final yr, and have proved my saviour. This wonder product is often the deciding element among me lying in a dark room with a cold compress on my burning eyes – and feeling nicely sufficient to do a day’s work.

Steer clear of the outside

No strolling down country lanes, hands drifting lightly across the grass. Keep away from flower beds, vegetation and do not permit any individual to mow grass in your vicinity.

For sufferers substantial on hay fever meds, the outdoors can be a perilous area, as well. A colleague, dosed up on Piriton (“may trigger drowsiness, do not operate machinery”, it warns in modest print on the packet), ended up crashing her automobile into a lamppost. We hay fever sufferers are, it seems, greater off indoors following all.

My hay fever suggestions are not to be sneezed at