The Naked Soul Blog | Poems, Prose, and Books for Soul Growth

Two years ago I had my first nightmarish experience with pollen allergy. Since, I had no clue what I am having, I went on suffering for weeks without knowing how to treat my symptoms. Spring season pollen allergy is bad and I wrote about it in full details describing what can you do, from taking allergy tests to various allergy prevention method.

But what is an irony here is that when you are an allergy sufferer, you feel helpless. Even though when you know that you have pollen allergies, you can’t do anything but suffer when the pollen allergy strikes back.

These are some of the quick tips for the uninitiated:

1. Sign up for allergy alerts (pollen.com is a great resource for that). You can set it up as a text alert on your mobile. As simple as that.

2. Monitor the allergy counts in your town or city on a daily basis. All you want to look for is: Low, Medium, High.

You job is to protect yourself on High Pollen Count days. If possible, do not go out. If you have to get out of your sealed bunker, wear sunglasses, cover your nose and/or face, wear full length clothing and when you get back to you home, immediately discard the cloths and change into a fresh sets of pollen clean clothing.

Also, since the pollen counts are higher in morning hours, try not to go out from 5 am to 11 am. Avoid, dry and windy days in particular. Winds are your enemy.

3. Keep your house windows and car windows closed. Do not use outside air setting in your car or home AC.

4. Wash your face and hands with lukewarm water and take anti-allergy medication. Keep the anti-histamines handy and take it before the pollen counts get higher. Remember, you will get hit. The solution is to be proactive.

You are not going to beat pollen at this game. So, the best you can do is prepare to minimize your suffering.

5. Some basic rules which should be common sense. Take shower daily. If you go out, then may be twice. Shampoo your hair whether you go out or not. Change your bedsheet and pillow covers every 3 days and wash them well with hot waters.

6. Avoid rubbing your eyes and nose. You will only irritate them more and make it red from inflammation. If your eyes are too itchy, use eye drops and lie down and rest. Close your eyes and rest. Rest. 

It’s too much repititon but it is important my friend. I know what you are going through. Trust me, I suffer just as you do.

Sometimes, taking breaks from work is the best thing you can do stay consistent with your daily chores and work. So, don’t be shy from just taking few hours off to give your eyes a break.

Doing this will only lessen your pain, anger and suffering.

Remember, you can not control pain but you can minimize your suffering. A lot of suffering is self-created.

Let me know how are you doing this year.

For one thing, (I must say) this year has been actually better. It’s mid-May already and the pollens have just come out now. Just one more month and you will be happy like a puppy playing in a big playground.

Just hang in there. We are close to the end of spring-pollen-allergy season.