Doctors Debunk 8 Myths About Seasonal Allergies

flowers trigger seasonal allergies

that's actually not true if you have a

hypoallergenic pet you won't have an

allergic reaction unfortunately there is

no such thing as a hypoallergenic pet

you can outgrow your seasonal allergies

so there's no definite way that you can

outgrow your seasonal allergies my name

is dr weiwei lee i am a board-certified

adult and pediatric allergy immunology

specialist my name is dr pail gupta and

i am also an adult and pediatric triple

board certified allergy asthma and

immunology doctor and today we'll be

debunking myths about allergies

if you didn't have allergies as a kid

you won't get them as an adult so that's

a myth you can actually develop

allergies at any point in your life

especially now with people moving to

different locations the change in

climate location or sometimes adopting a

new pet can increase your risk for

developing allergies right so it's any

new exposure essentially can cause your

system to start reacting and develop an

allergy i've also had at the reverse

i've also had people who have lived with

cats and dogs while they were children

and then they decide to get a cat or dog

as an adult and they're now allergic and

so your immune system is constantly

changing and so you can develop an

allergy at any time you should only take

allergy medication once you feel

symptoms so that is a myth so if you

wait until your symptoms get super

intense and super severe then it'll be

that much harder to get those symptoms

under control so it's a good idea to

start early like if you have pile

analogy in the spring i usually say have

the patients start pre-medicating with

anti-histamine nasal spray or eye drops

before the season starts i usually

recommend as soon as they start seeing

even a little bit of the pollen that

they're allergic to especially severe

seasonal allergy sufferers we have them

take them even two weeks in advance just

so they get used to taking them the

timing sometimes can change from year to

year depending on the weather so you can

use the timing from last year to make a

proximal guess to when you can start

pre-medication tree allergies are mostly

a springtime allergen grass allergies

are for summer and weed allergies are in

the fall so for people who have tree

grass and weed normally it would have

been maybe from like april until

september that they might have had

symptoms but now we're seeing even as

early as february especially

and then the weed allergen kind of

ending as late as october november and

patient asks us is it safe to take the

medication every day i would say if you

take the medication according to how we

recommend it it is safe and effective

and it's important to know that when you

take your medications such as a

combination of oral antihistamine and

nasal spray together every day achieve a

better efficacy than taking it

sporadically only when you have symptoms

flowers trigger seasonal allergies

that's actually not true pollens from

flowering plants are not the main

contributor to seasonal allergy symptoms

in order for pollen to cause allergic

symptoms they need to meet three

criteria they need to be small

they need to be light and they need to

be dry to be carried by wind so the

pollen and flowers is actually large and

it's distributed by insects and so

that pollen is not in the air which

means that it doesn't get into our eyes

and nose however for tree pollen weed

pollen and grass pollen because it's

light and because it travels in the air

more easily then

it can get into our eyes and nose and

airways more easily and because it

travels

at least around 50 miles that means it

might not be a tree in your backyard it

might be a tree somewhere far away that

you're reacting to but i do hear that

every year a patient coming and saying

that this is the worst allergy symptom

that i have compared to the past so i

think that has to do with a number of

factors such as

climate change and also planting

particular type of tree in certain

location can increase the symptoms

eating local honey can help cure

seasonal allergies

that is a myth because local honey

contains pollen collected by bees so

those come from flowering plants we

mentioned before pollen from flowering

plants are not major contributor to

seasonal allergies

and also we don't have a lot of studies

done on the effectiveness of local honey

so we cannot know for sure how effective

they are in treating or helping to cure

your seasonal allergy symptoms but i

love honey because i use that to help

with allergy symptoms such as ichi's

scratchy throat so i have no problem

recommending using honey as a way to

soothe your throat your symptoms but i

would not say

it can cure seasonal allergies she

nailed it hopefully i can do that every

time

if you have a hypoallergenic pet you

won't have an allergic reaction so

that's a myth so unfortunately there is

no such thing as a hypoallergenic pet a

lot of breeders will claim to have

hypoallergenic pets but unfortunately

there is no hundred percent animal

without any dander the pet tender is the

microscopic flex of skin that the pet

shed so the same protein can be also

found in their saliva so it's not the

fur but rather the the shedding of the

skin with their saliva it's important to

know that even hair less stock can shed

and that will contain some degree of

allergens and so there might be certain

breeds that people are less allergic to

and that's all person-dependent so for

example i have a cat allergy but there's

certain cats that i do totally fine

around and then there's other cats that

as soon as i walk into someone's home

and they have that cat i'll start

reacting and so it is not just by

touching or rubbing your face against

the cat the dander is airborne so that

can get into your eyes and nose and into

your airways and start causing that ige

antibody to react and produce that

histamine which causes the symptoms

frequent vacuuming is super important

also air purifiers and so

for somebody that really wants a pet or

you know usually it happens the other

way around is that they've already

gotten a pet and they're not willing to

get rid of it for those patients then we

usually do attempt to do allergy

immunotherapy and see how

well we can control their allergy

symptoms we don't have a test to test

for particulation

yeah we wish we did because if we did we

would have a huge long line out the door

of people wanting to get tested for

particular breeds that they might be

able to have in their home allergy shots

don't work so allergy shots are

immunotherapy and

allergy shots actually have a lot of

data behind them and they've been used

for years and years and we know that

they do reduce the not only the symptoms

that people experience but also the

medications that people are on and then

there's also the allergy sublingual

immunotherapy tablets that are fda

approved so there's two different

options and i just always like to

mention that because some people are

scared of shots i think there is this

myth because people will misunderstood

allergy shots as medication allergy

shots are not medications they don't

provide immediate symptomatic relief but

see them as a way to naturally

desensitize your allergens and to

naturally develop tolerance you will

still have to take your allergy

medications such as antihistamine or

nasal spray at the beginning of allergy

shots to help you manage your allergy

symptoms but over the long term allergy

shots do work to achieve that natural

tolerance you can outgrow your seasonal

allergies that is not true because with

your immune system changing sometimes

your symptom can get better or worse

over time so there's no definite way

that you can outgrow your seasonal

allergies sometimes people might have

moved from the west coast to the east

coast and all of a sudden they don't

have those seasonal symptoms that they

used to so they might say that oh i

outgrew my seasonal allergies but it's

really that they moved and that they're

not exposed to the same pollens that

they were when they were younger the

most frequent symptoms that we see are

symptoms of the eyes for example itchy

watery eyes

the nose can get congested you can have

a runny nose itchy nose you can have a

sore throat from post nasal drip and you

can also have coughing wheezing

shortness of breath if you have allergic

asthma currently the closest cure we

have for seasonal allergies is called

allergy immunotherapy i think the

important thing to remember with

immunotherapy is that you have to be

ready and committed for it for allergy

shots you will need to go into the

allergist office weekly for uh six to

nine months and then it goes to monthly

and we would say that you should

continue your therapy for at least three

to five years for it to be effective and

then for the sublingual immunotherapy

tablets it depends on which tablet

you're going to start for dust mite

immunotherapy tablets for example you

have to take it daily and we would also

recommend that you take them daily for

at least three to five years in order to

get the full benefit from them you can

cure your allergies so we can't cure

environmental or food allergies at this

time we've come pretty close to

environmental allergies but the reason

is is that we haven't figured out how to

definitively change the immune system's

reaction to environmental allergens or

to food allergens our environment

doesn't stay

the same all the time so with new

exposure in our environment

our immune system is constantly adapting

to the new triggers in the environment

so we can develop new allergies even if

we

cure the old allergies that's why i

don't like to use the word cure because

you can always develop new allergy

symptoms after going through

immunotherapy so once we have the

allergy test results we always want to

see what are your exposures knowledge is

power so once you know what your

triggers are there's a lot of things you

can do besides taking medications their

behavioral modification we always

provide to our patient education what to

do when you're allergic to certain

pollen what to do during pollen season

or what to do with pet dander dust mites

we can help you to manage your allergies