You probably know someone or you have any allergies. The witness itching, puffy, watery eyes and red, stuffy nose signal changes of the season in households and workplaces across the country. What these people suffer from allergic rhinitis, or hay fever. The medical term for this condition refers to nasal congestion and itching, the most common symptom.
Hay fever is an allergic reaction. It is your immune system in response to foreign objects into the air to breathe. Hay fever usually refers to an allergy to the outside, the suspended material such as pollens and molds.
Approximately 15-20 percent of the U.S. population has some degree of hay fever. It was also found among men and women. Usually, hay fever is seasonal, but it can take all year round if the allergen stays throughout the year. Spring and autumn are the main hay fever seasons.
Hay fever, like all allergic reactions caused by allergens, foreign invaders that enter your body through inhalation, ingestion or through the skin.
In hay fever, allergens in the air are substances that your airways (mouth, nose, throat and lungs) on breathing and the linings of your eyes and ears, sometimes occurs through direct contact. Most times it is difficult to determine a specific allergen.
Once these allergens come in contact with your airway, making white blood cells of the immune system to produce antibodies to the offending substance. This overreaction to a harmless substance is often a hypersensitivity reaction.
The antibody called immunoglobulin E or IgE, is stored in special cells mast cells. When the antibody comes into contact with the corresponding antigen, they promote the release of chemicals and hormones as a “mediator”. Histamine is an example of a mediator.
It is the action of these mediators on organs and cells other than the symptoms of an allergic reaction, in this case hay fever. The most common allergens are pollens in hay fever. Pollen is released by small particles of flowering plants.
This was by wind to other plants of the same species, is fertilized, if the plant can bloom again postponed. The pollen of some species of trees, grasses and weeds (like ragweed) reactions are the most likely cause. Pollen from other plant species are less allergenic.
The time of year when a species of plant releases pollen or “dusted” depends on local climate and what is normal for this species. Some species pollinate in the spring and late summer and early fall. In general, the farther north, is a plant that pollinates later in the season.
Fluctuations in temperature and precipitation from one year to the amount of pollen in the air affect a given season. Other common allergens in hay fever are molds. Molds are a type of fungus that has no stems, roots or leaves.
Fungal spores float in the air like pollen, until they find a hospitable environment to grow. Unlike pollens, molds, but not every season. They are open all year in most of the United States.
Mushrooms grow well outside as inside. Outside, they thrive in soil, vegetation and dead wood. Interior living fungi (mainly mildew) in places where air can circulate freely, such as attics and basements, wet areas like bathrooms, where food is prepared and stored or discarded.
Pollen and mold in the air are measured daily in many parts of the United States and reported by the National Bureau of allergies.
Pollen and mold on which people develop allergic symptoms vary a little from the individual. Pollen and mold are not too useful in predicting, will react if a certain person.
The risk factors for hay fever have relatives with hay fever, repeated exposure to the allergen and other allergic diseases such as atopic eczema or asthma.
Nasal polyps (small benign growths of the lining of the nose). The allergens that cause symptoms in a person if he or she ages. The symptoms of allergy to some but not all, when they get older. The physical changes of pregnancy may hay fever worse.