My Love-Hate Relationship With Spring

Wednesday, May 21, 2008
I love spring. By the time May arrives, I'm sick to death of the snow and the cold, and I'm ready for warm weather and green, growing things. I love my flowers and the budding trees.

I hate spring. Every time the warm weather arrives, the scourge arrives, on the warm spring breezes, to make my life miserable.

Pollen.

I have hay fever. I get the runny nose, the sneezing, the watery eyes, the full sinuses, the headache.

I use prescription medication to keep it under control, but every spring the pollen count is different, and I have to experiment with my meds to determine the correct dosage. Too much and it aggravates my insomnia, too little and I can't breathe.

Right now I'm in the "too little" camp, and I've been sniffling and snuffling for a week. I increased the dosage this morning, and I hope this takes care of it.

Or perhaps I can try homeopathy, and drink some not-pollen water. Yeah, I'm sure that'll work.

6 comments:

Random Michelle K said...

I've heard various rumors that eating local honey can help to some small degree with seasonal allergies.

The theory is that you become accustomed to the evil pollen invaders before they get bad.

No idea if this actually works or not, but it couldn't possibly hurt to have honey in your tea and on toast and with a shot of whiskey.

Also, we have an air purifier for our bedroom, that at least helps my husband sleep better.

And at least around here, pollen has been crazy. Some mornings the windshield of the car has been covered in it, and all the chairs on the porch look as if they've accumulated several weeks of dust.

Do none of the local weather/agriculture places give pollen counts? If they did, you could, like make a spreadsheet and a chart and everything for future reference, correlating pollen counts, severity of symptoms, and medicine dosage!

How fun!

Cindi in CO said...

The pollen is terrible in our neck of the woods this year as well.

I take Claritin in the morning and Benedryl at night, along with my asthma meds, and I'm still kind of miserable.

Kinda sucks being allergic to summer, you know?

John the Scientist said...

Did you read Skepchiks tirade. against homeopathy 2 years ago?

But anyway, you don’t even need to know that — you just need common sense. Would you sit in a bathtub someone just peed in? Would you swim in an ocean that someone just peed in? There’s a difference, and if you can’t tell that difference then you deserve to spend your life sitting in a tub of pee.

Good stuff.

Janiece said...

I read the "Homeopathy Week" entries over there, and that was pretty good, too. I've only been reading SkepChick for about six months...

Nathan said...

I live on Benadryl this time of year. Without it, I always look like I've been sobbing.

Jeri said...

Getting a room air conditioner, rather than sleeping with my windows open, made a world of difference for me. I'm allergic to grass pollens, so my miserable time runs mid-June through August - bleah.

I'm a fan of Canadian Allegra, benadryl and naphcon antihistamine eyedrops.

I hope you feel better!