Cape Codders who feel their seasonal allergies are getting worse every year are not alone. And they weren’t wrong.
Doctors and environmental health scientists say climate change is contributing to longer and more intense pollen seasons – and it’s a trend that shows no sign of abating.
Studies that track pollen activity over decades show that warming trends have resulted in pollen season starting two to three weeks earlier in the northern United States than in the late 1970s and 1980s, said Dr. Aaron Bernstein, director of the global environment and climate change center at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.
“Pollen season starts earlier and lasts longer,” says Dr. Lewis Ziska, professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health in New York.
The number of frost-free days is increasing, affecting plants from trees to ragweed, said Ziska, who has published research on pollen trends in the journal Lancet and the National Academy of Sciences.
The longer growing season had an important impact on pollen trends in New England which was more pronounced in Minnesota and the Dakota, where the growing season has been extended to three weeks, Ziska said.
“At the same time, carbon dioxide in the air, which comes mainly from burning fossil fuels, makes allergic plants produce more pollen,” says Bernstein.
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“Carbon dioxide can serve as fertilizer for plants. This is a double hit. A double hit is a longer growing season with more pollen.”
Recently retired allergist Dr. Bruce Gordon of Yarmouthport has witnessed the impact of an extended allergy season on both patients and himself.
“I’ve been training for the last 40 years. The last decade has seen very noticeable changes in the intensity and severity of allergies,” he said. “Every year is a little bit worse than the year before.”
“I have allergies myself,” said Gordon, who serves as a staff surgeon and chief of otolaryngology at Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis.
“I have a runny nose. I get itchy eyes. I cough. Sometimes (pollen) triggers mild asthma and I have to use an inhaler.”
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mother nature double dip
A longer growing season results in a pooling of tree pollen springs and then grass pollen seasons, to the detriment of patients, Gordon said.
“This is the moment when we start to overlap,” said Dr. John Costa, staff allergist at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital-Plymouth, who is also a physician at the Allergy and Asthma Associates offices in Buzzards Bay and Duxbury.
The overlap will continue for another two weeks, depending on weather conditions, Costa said.
Sunny and warm weather — also known on Cape Cod as beach weather — contributes to pollen loads. The rain washes away the pollen, says Costa.
Mark Thurman, director of operations at YMCA Cape Cod, hopes his seasonal allergies will ease with his recent move from the fertile valley of Albany, New York, to Barnstable County.
That’s not what happened.
“For me, it’s worse because of the wind. It just destroys everything,” said Thurman.
“Wind is a great pollen distributor, of course,” says Ziska.
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‘Sex on the cheap’
“I don’t want to be X-rated,” Ziska said. But all pollen is the semen version of plants.
“It’s a man’s sperm.”
The plant produces a lot of pollen and hopes some of it gets to the female flowers. The wind helps, said Ziska. “It’s cheap sex.”
The pollen wall moves with the weather front, being pushed out as the weather turns colder and wetter, Bernstein said.
On more stagnant days when she wakes up early outside her Boston home, “you can actually see the pollen, and it’s amazing,” Bernstein says.
He meant both literally and figuratively and advised people with asthma to check pollen counts daily.
Ziska, who has asthma, made sure she carried her rescue inhaler with her during high pollen days.
“When you start to look at the downstream health impacts, it can be quite significant. Breathing is a pretty basic aspect of life as we know it,” Ziska said.
When allergy sufferers inhale pollen, it triggers their immune system to release histamine, a chemical WebMD.com likens to a bouncer at the club getting rid of something unwanted — in this case, an allergen.
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If the body overreacts, it can trigger asthma and the lungs don’t get the oxygen they need, Ziska says.
Most vulnerable to high pollen counts are children and the elderly, he said.
In addition to histamine, pollen allergies cause the release of other inflammatory substances that allow eye, nose and lung tissue to become inflamed, says Costa.
People with mild allergies may find taking an over-the-counter antihistamine to relieve all of their symptoms, he says.
This class of antihistamines includes Zyrtec, Allegra and Claritin, according to WebMD.
People with moderate to severe seasonal allergies may need to increase their defenses by adding anti-inflammatory medications including Flonase and Nasacort nasal sprays, also available without a prescription, Costa said.
He doesn’t recommend using Benadryl, saying it has many side effects.
“I say to my patients, ‘Benadryl is the last century.’”
Nasal anti-inflammatory sprays do a better job with nasal congestion than antihistamines, says Dr. John Oppenheimer, professor of clinical medicine at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.
He says it’s best if people start medication — whether antihistamines, nasal sprays or both — a few weeks before their seasonal allergies show up.
“No one wants to be symptomatic for a week during the prettiest part of the year.”
Early treatment can help prevent allergy-related asthma attacks and sinus infections, which occur when bacteria in the sinuses stop due to nasal obstruction that reduces mucus flow, Oppenheimer says.
“I can’t tell you how many people I see have their asthma” because of seasonal allergies, he says.
If people don’t find full relief with antihistamines and anti-inflammatories, they should talk to their doctor about getting allergy shots, says Gordon.
Beyond antihistamines and anti-inflammatory
“If you’re not doing well with them you need something different, you need something more,” he said.
Gordon says allergy shots appear to be very effective in controlling allergy-related fatigue.
Even with over-the-counter medications, it’s best to talk to your doctor about controlling any exacerbating allergy symptoms, Oppenheimer says.
“It has to be precision medicine based on you and your specific symptoms,” he says.
People who fail to anticipate allergy season “are not destined,” says Costa. He said it’s a good idea to start treatment now, although it will take a few days to feel relief.
Allergy sufferers can also take other steps to limit pollen exposure, from using saline nasal washes to closing windows and turning on air conditioners, doctors say.
Vacuuming carpets and washing bed linen will remove pollen from the environment, as will washing clothes and showering after spending time outdoors.
Hair is a pollen trap, so washing it before dumping lots of allergens on the pillow at night makes sense, especially for people who spend the afternoon sitting outdoors or working in the garden, says Costa.
Pollen builds up on people “like you see it piling up on the hood of your car,” he says.
“Masks can help,” said Ziska.
Breathe the fresh air by the sea
While the end of tree pollen season that allowed oaks, birches and pines to wreak havoc with people’s respiratory symptoms will bring some relief in the coming weeks—leaving grass pollen to deliver their own blow and not all at once—experts say climate change will continues to extend the pollen season.
“When you look at the long-term climate, it’s going to get worse,” Ziska said.
Thurman says she manages her symptoms with daily medication — and by going to the beach, if she can.
He wondered why the beach provided relief for his allergy symptoms until a friend pointed out that the sea breeze blowing over the sand was free of pollen.
“A breeze that comes from the sea doesn’t come from the land.”
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