Q: Please mummy, you have to help me out. I sneeze mercilessly up to 2 hours every morning and evening, and then I’ll also have runny nose with colorless and watery fluid, plus itchy eyes. It disturbs me so much.
A: Well, it does sound like some allergy and is known as allergic rhinitis (pronounced Rine-Ai-Tis). This condition, also known as hay fever, occurs when your immune system over-reacts to certain substances in the air (allergens), marking them out as intruders. The resulting symptoms are due to some chemicals released in the body like histamine. These substances cause sneezing especially when you wake up in the morning, runny nose, watery itchy eyes and itchy ears, nose and throat, which could occur seasonally or be present all year round. In fact, the symptoms written above are as good as a text book description of this condition 😀 Oftentimes, in people with this condition, there is a positive history of a family member with asthma or other allergies.
The first step towards dealing with this is finding out what the triggers (allergens) are. It could be dust mites, wood dust, smoke, pollen, grasses, cockroaches etc Your doctor will ask helpful questions to help you identify the culprit. He/she, in the meantime, will prescribe some drugs, the commonest of which is an anti-histamine to help control your symptoms. Other treatment options include taking allergy shots and going for a nasal irrigation (essentially rinsing out the mucous from your nose).
Prevention is focused on identifying and reducing contact with allergens. This would include eradicating cockroaches from your house, using a mask when working outdoors, closing doors and windows when there are lots of pollen in the environment, not hanging laundry outside to prevent pollen sticking to them and causing problems later etc. Reducing dust mites by using oiled duster or damp cloth to clean, using allergen proof covers on mattresses etc will be helpful. For more on dust mites, what they are and how to reduce their population, please click on the links below:
Daily Health Tips: What Has Dust Mite Got To Do With Asthma?
So, get a doctor to prescribe drugs to tide you over (you should be able to pick up the prescription over the counter thereafter) and work with you to identify allergens and then you have to avoid them.
All the best 🙂
Have a good night, people 😀
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