Allergy Season's Upon Us

March 22, 2002--

If you suffer from allergies, get ready for the wheeze and sneeze season.

If temperatures warm into the 70's Friday, allergy specialists say we could see an explosion of tree pollen. Science Specialist Ed Yeates takes a look.

More Info Reducing Allergy Symptoms

I think that I shall never see a poem as threatening as a tree.

It's the trees of course, and Thursday was what experts call the first significant day for a pollen count.

The count is moderate, but still enough to cause the first "real" symptoms of the season.

The highest is elm at 12.

Then comes Cottonwood and Oak at five. Trailing in fourth place - Birch - at one.

Bad Season Ahead? Pull out the Kleenex, a Harvard University study reports we're in for a bad allergy season. The national survey of physicians finds more than 40 percent of patients reported having at least one sinus infection. That's up ten percent from last year. Nearly a fourth of the patients said their sinus troubles began with an allergy. The majority of the doctors in the survey said they believe there will be an increase in allergy sufferers this spring. And the worst is yet to come. New research finds rising carbon dioxide levels linked to global warming will mean more pollen in the air in the future.

ED YEATES, SCIENCE SPECIALIST: "LAST YEAR, WE WERE SEEING POLLEN AS EARLY AS JANUARY. BUT THIS YEAR, IT'S BEEN SO COLD, THE TREES ARE JUST SITTING HERE - WAITING FOR THINGS TO WARM UP."

LAWRENCE LARSEN, M.D., INTERMOUNTAIN ALLERGY & ASTHMA CLINIC: "IF WE GET THIS WARMING LIKE WE'RE SUPPOSED TO HAVE FRIDAY UP IN THE SEVENTIES AND IT REMAINS THAT WAY, THEN OVER THE NEXT COUPLE OF WEEKS, WE COULD HAVE A VERY LARGE BURST - SUDDEN BURST OF TREE POLLEN."

Since severe allergies are often based on a cumulative effect, all the trees bursting out at once could pose a problem, raising the pollen count into the hundreds very quickly.

"IT COULD BE THE GAMUT OF THE NASAL SYMPTOMS: POST NASAL DRAINAGE, DRAINAGE FROM THE FRONT OF THE NOSE, STUFFY NOSE KEEPING VICTIMS AWAKE AT NIGHT, THE ITCHY EYES, WATERY EYES."

For the most part, storms don't make a difference, only the temperature. If moderate to warm temperatures hold up most of the time over the next several weeks, even if it rains or snows off and on, that's all it takes.