Spring is a time for bloom, growth, pollen and for many, it’s a time when seasonal allergies hit.
From symptoms like itchy and watery eyes, runny nose, to more severe ones like asthma – it’s a time of year many have learned to expect.
“Allergies are where you have, abnormal responses to normally occurring, chemicals that are in our environment,” said Dr. Seema Khan, an allergist and clinical immunologist at Ottawa Allergy Associates.
“Like ragweed, like tree pollen, like mold. And if your body has a predisposition to develop an antibody against an allergen, then you start to react to it.”
She suggests wearing a mask or taking an allergy pill ahead of time if you’re sensitive to the mold, prior to cleaning or raking grass and debris on the ground.
“As the snow melts, we see a lot of mold and the mold spores have been high over the past month,” Khan said.
As for what this allergy season will look like, Khan says the conditions appear to be normal for this time of year.
“Normal season, nothing extreme,” Khan said.
“We should kind of see what usually happens, which is tree pollen season from April through the end of June, and then grass starts end of May and goes into middle of August.”
Daniel Coates with Aerobiology Research Laboratories measures pollen across Canada and says Ottawa had an early start to pollen season with the warm weather, but it’s currently lower because of the cold.
“We saw suddenly pollen being released in the air by trees like maple, alder, cedar, elm, hazel. But what happens is when it gets cold again, like this, they subside. We’re seeing much lower levels of pollen today,” Coates said.
Coates said he is also expecting a “normal,” season for Ottawa.
“What we’re expecting is more of a normal season, not a dramatically high season in terms of overall pollen for Canadians. But it also depends on where you live. In Ottawa, here we predict more of a normal season with normal temperatures, however we did see a little bit of an odd start to the season,” he said.
Ottawa resident Allan Champion says he’s getting prepared for the season.
“It comes up on you gradually and you don’t really realize what it is until suddenly you remember it’s that time of year again,” he said.
Champion added that he’s able to tackle symptoms using over-the-counter medications.
“Definitely itchy eyes. It like builds up and it just drives you nuts.”
