The winters have finally said goodbye and now its spring’s turn to affect you with pollen grains.
The health experts have alerted the people to stay safe this week as those who are sensitive to pollen grains will notice uneasiness and discomfort. According to the health experts allergens are arriving with a vengeance.
Flu season runs from October to sometimes as late as May, with April as the worst month of allergy season.
The experts say the pollen count will witness a major increase due to the mild temperatures and scarcity of rain.
This year’s allergy season will be shorter than most, experts predict.
“It will be a shorter period by a number of weeks, but you will see it all hitting very intensely,” Dr. David Shulan, a fellow with the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, said.
A pollen count released midday on Monday tracked levels at 104, which is in the high range.
Follow these tips to avoid falling prey to pollen allergies:
• Select the right plants. Ragweed’s yellow blooms are pretty all fall, but their pollen is potent. Ditto goldenrod. If you like yellows, try long-lasting zinnias, pansies and mums. Caution: Daisies, sunflowers and chrysanthemums are ragweed cousins.
• Keep weeds under control before they go to seed.
• Don’t bring cut flowers indoors. They will continue producing pollen in the warmth of your house. Commercial cut flowers are bred to limit pollen.
• Use a face mask approved by NIOSH while working. Wear a hat, long sleeves and gloves. Your eyes are a pollen vector. Protect them with glasses.
• Check daily pollen counts in weather forecasts. Lowest pollen days are cloudy, still winds and during and right after rains. Pollen is lowest in late afternoons and evenings.
• Ask nonallergic family members to mow the grass. Keep windows closed on mowing day. Mow grass low.pollen-allergy
• Shower and wash your hair after gardening and change your clothes.
Avoid high-pollen plants
• Decorative grasses
• Softwood trees, especially maple, pine and sycamore.
• Weeds including sumac, ragweed, goldenrod, thistle and pigweed.
• Juniper and cypress shrubs.
Choose allergy-friendly plants
• Nearly all popular flowering annuals and bulbs.
• Shrubs and bushes including holly, hibiscus, yew, spirea, boxwood, viburmum and hydrangea.
• Trees including fruit producers, English holly, dogwood, magnolia and red but not silver maple.
• Wood mulches produce allergic mold spores. Consider using gravel or ground covers such as pachysandra and vinca.
