A recent article about allergy suffering in America has some very interesting new information about what has made this allergy season tougher than ever on allergy sufferers.
According to the article, Dr. Clifford Bassett, a NYC based allergist, blames this year's miserable allergy season on two main factors: record-breaking winter precipitation combined with unusual flashes of warm weather in early spring ‘primed the pump’ for trees and plants to overproduce large amounts of pollen.
Bassett warns against self-diagnosing and treating what may seem like allergies. ‘A lot of people spend blindly on over-the-counter medications and are extremely unsatisfied,’ he says. Instead, he recommends visiting the doctor to test for particular allergen in order to develop a strategic treatment plan.
Testing can help people control their exposure to various allergens. Bassett says that for a third of allergy sufferers, symptoms can also be aggravated by consuming related foods. Apples, hazelnuts, carrots, celery, peaches and pears are cross-reactive with tree pollen while celery, cereal grains, potatoes, melons and tomatoes are cross-reactive with grass pollen.
The 5 cities where American suffer allergies the most:
- Knoxville, TN
- Louisville, KY
- Chattanooga, TN
- Dayton, OH
- Charlotte, NC