Allergy season is here, and many North Carolinians are turning to medication.
CVS Minute Clinic Family Nurse Practitioner Kassidy Jacobs said this is the time of year when people start to come in with classic allergy symptoms.
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“The combination of watery-type things like watery eyes, runny nose [and] sneezing, that’s really the combo for allergies,” Jacobs said.
The healthcare professional said the Raleigh area is known for being tough for those that struggle with allergies. She also shared it is not unusual for someone new to the area who has never had allergies before to develop them.
Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America recently ranked Raleigh as the seventh worst city for allergies in the U.S.
For new and seasoned allergy sufferers, an antihistamine is a good first step.
“Histamine is a chemical our body produces whenever we’re exposed to an allergen, so the antihistamine help reduce the effects of the histamine,” Jacobs said.
Common OTC brands are usually in blue or green boxes and contain loratadine or cetirizine.
Jacobs said there are times when a nasal spray will need to be added to the toolkit.
“When the single medication is not working then we’ll go ahead and add on something else,” Jacobs said. “We don’t necessarily want to throw on everything at it to begin with because we don’t want your body to get tolerant to it and it not work for you anymore.”
Jacobs added simply switching from one brand of antihistamine to another could also do the trick.
“Sometimes patients may find relief if they change antihistamines because sometimes their body may get tolerant to one kind so they could try a different brand,” she said.
Jacobs warned caution when choosing allergy medications as not every product is safe for everyone.
“When things have a D on the end of it, that means it has a decongestant in it,” she said. “Those medications are not safe for people with high blood pressure or other types of heart issues.”
Certain nasal sprays also require caution with use as some are not meant for continued daily use.
If traditional methods aren’t working or no longer have the same desired effect, Jacobs shared additional testing may be required through your family doctor.
Jacobs emphasized the importance of figuring out the root cause of your symptoms and not letting them linger.
“With allergies, if they are uncontrolled and you’re not doing anything to try and control those symptoms, it can make you more susceptible to catch viruses and bacterial infections as well,” she said.
WRAL Meteorologist Kat Campbell noted North Carolinians are in for a long allergy season as the weather warms up.
“The birds are out chirping, the trees are budding, the plants are blooming – that’s what we expect to see in spring,” Campbell said. “As it gets warmer, the buds on the trees start to kind of pop, and that’s the pollen that you see. It happens so trees can reproduce, but a lot of us suffer from the effects of that pollen.”
Campbell noted tree pollen isn’t all allergy sufferers will have to worry about, with other seasonal allergens yet to wreak havoc in the coming months.
“We’ve still got about a month left to go with this tree pollen and then as soon as that backs off that’s when the grass pollen starts to spike,” Campbell said. “Grass pollen typically lasts the entire month of May. Then, you get ragweed later on in the summer.”