How to Prevent Hay Fever

For the most part though, hay fever is a mild annoyance and irritation that can result in a lot of sneezing, persistent itches and a lot of used tissues.

Hay fever is pretty easy to counteract these days, with a wide range of anti-histamines available in tablet, liquid or nasal spray form. Generally, when there is a high pollen count hay fever sufferers will need to take one tablet or serving of an anti-histamine for the entire day, with perhaps another dose mid-afternoon if problems persist.

There are lots of ways to prevent hay fever from becoming a problem in everyday life:

• Try to minimise your exposure to the outdoors as much as possible during high pollen-count days. Especially during the early evening/late afternoon when the pollen count will be the highest. This means keeping windows and doors closed, using air conditioning when driving (instead of rolling down your windows) and changing out of any clothes you wore outside as soon as you get home.

• If you have to go outside, there are small ways to help out:
  • • Try to wear wrap-around sunglasses to lower the amount of pollen getting into your eyes
    • Some Vaseline applied to the inside of the nose can help reduce symptoms
    • Avoid areas with a large pollen level, such as fields and parks

Try to get someone else to do the gardening and mow the grass – an excuse to get out of it! If you really have to do it though:

• • Try to avoid gardening in the late afternoon
  • You can find anti-allergy masks in most hardware stores pretty cheaply and this means you can wear them to prevent any pollen getting into your respiratory system (combine with goggles to protect your eyes!)
  • Do not let any bare skin come into contact with freshly-cut grass, the pollen count will be even higher so try to avoid sunbathing after mowing and if it isn’t too hot, try to keep a shirt on at all times

Follow that advice and you should find that getting through the hay fever months becomes much easier.