You may be battling a runny nose and watery eyes a little more often these days.
Allina Health allergist Dr. Pramod Kelkar tells the WCCO Morning News with Vineeta Sawkar the allergy season is starting earlier and ending later each year.
"And part of the reason is climate change,' Dr. Kelkar says. "Because of climate change, the allergy season is extended. So it starts about a month earlier and it ends about a month later."
Kelkar says basic things like flushing your sinuses and showering at night to rinse pollen off if you've been outdoors can help you during allergy season.
"You know, the sinus rinse I compare to brushing teeth," Kelkar says. "Just like brushing teeth, you keep the mouth clean, the area clean. Same way when you do the sinus rinse, you keep the sinuses clean so that the allergens don't have enough time to interact with the lining of the nose to create all the allergy symptoms."
Spring allergies come from a different place than fall allergies - or hayfever - which comes mostly from ragweed and goldenrod. In the spring, it tends to be tree pollen. There are two ways trees spread their pollen.
TREE POLLEN RIDES THE WIND INTO YOUR SINUSES
Trees don’t have an easy time in the reproductive game. As a tree, you have two options to disperse your pollen. They can employ an agent, such as a butterfly or bee, that can carry pollen to another plant of the same species.
But it's option two that causes the problems: Get a free ride on the wind.
Wind was the original pollinator, evolving long before animal-mediated pollination. Here is why wind-blown pollen makes allergies worse.
Wind is not an efficient pollinator, however. The probability of one pollen grain landing in the right location – the stigma or ovule of another plant of the same species – is infinitesimally small.
Therefore, wind-pollinated trees must compensate for this inefficiency by producing copious amounts of pollen, and it must be light enough to be carried.
For allergy sufferers, that can mean air filled with microscopic pollen grains that can get into your eyes, throat and lungs, sneak in through window screens and convince your immune system that you’ve inhaled a dangerous intruder.
Plants relying on animal-mediated pollination, by contrast, can produce heavier and stickier pollen to adhere to the body of an insect. So don’t blame the bees for your allergies – it’s really the wind.
Climate change has a role here, too
Plants initiate pollen release based on a few factors, including temperature and light cues. Many of our temperate tree species respond to cues that signal the beginning of spring, including warmer temperatures.
Studies have found that pollen seasons have intensified in the past three decades as the climate has warmed. One study that examined 60 location across North America found pollen seasons expanded by an average of 20 days from 1990 to 2018 and pollen concentrations increased by 21%.
That’s not all. Increasing carbon dioxide levels may also be driving increases in the quantity of tree pollen produced.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.