Grey Fever: Hay Fever AND Pollution Are Making Our Lives Misery
The allergy party that's happening in your face right now is to be known as Grey Fever, and it's horrible
Noticed that your eyes feel full of cornflakes, your chest is constricted and your nose won't stopped running? Welcome to summer people.
Yes, this year our hayfever is set to be WORSE THAN EVER thanks to a combination of high pollen counts combined with pollution levels.
Grey fever happens when pollution levels are high and allergens can't disperse into the atmosphere - becoming more contentrated and getting right up our noses.
But it also happens when trees get stressed.
Stay with us here.
Professor Jean Emberlin, a pollen expert, explained: “Plants suffer biological stress in high temperatures and low rainfall. They produce smaller pollen grains with higher amounts of allergen.”
So not only can the allergens not escape from our cramped and polluted cities, they are also more allergy-causing than usual.
The trees in question are plane and birch trees.
Research by Boots has found that hay fever suffering has gone up massively this year - with sales of allergy meds up 177 per cent on this time in 2014. And it means that we're increasingly staying indoors, avoiding the lovely weather and shunning Britain's 'burgeoning cafe culture'.
Which all sucks.
Sufferers are recommended to stay indoors, keep the windows closed, wear sunglasses if they have to go out and change their clothes as soon as they get home. Which sounds less like summer and more like quarantine.
But hay - and grey - fever is a serious issue for many people, particularly those with asthma and other pre-existing conditions. The Met Office has issued a warning about high pollen counts in the coming days as dusty hair will be arriving from Europe and we're entering the peak grass pollen season. Tomorrow will be a bad day so be prepared.
Anti-allergy medicines are cumulative so if you know you suffer from hayfever, make sure you're taking your daily dose to help reduce the symptoms.
It seems this summer we will mostly be rubbing our eyes and gobbling the Benadryl.
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