In message , Michael
Bell writes
In message
Stewart Robert Hinsley wrote:

In message , Michael
Bell writes
I keep log of my health and looking back through it I only realised
last year that I get a massive attack of sneezing and runny nose and
feeling generally unwell each year about the 3rd weekend of May. My
doctor recognised this as hay fever and prescribed Cetirizine which
cured it. (Dose this prove the diagnosis?)

Yesterday evening I got the first attack of what felt like the same,
but it has gone this morning. What plants and their pollen are the
possible causes?

Michael Bell

PS. I live in Newcastle on tyne, and this hay fever continues to my
yearly visit to Swaledale.


The third weekend of May might be about right for the onset of grass
pollen hay fever season. The season has been getting earlier over the
years, but I'm now hit at the end of May rather than the beginning of
June.

Grass is already flowering here, but perhaps not yet in Tyneside and
Swaledale.

But spring hay fever is usually caused by tree pollen, rather than grass
pollen. Oak and beech would seem to be plausible candidates for this
time of year.

Seeking confirmation in Google finds an article in the Grauniad.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/20...thandwellbeing

Thank you for these suggestions.

The road I was going along last night when I had my first attack had
sycamore along it, and the place I go to in Swaledale has sycamore all
round it, so maybe sycamore is high on the suspect list. But the hay
fever lasts the rest of the summer, if I stop the Cetirizine, it comes
on again, so sycamore can't be the only cause Or can it?


The commonest form of hayfever is allergy to grass pollen. The season
for that is mostly June and July. If you're suffering from that now you
are highly sensitive. (I do get sometimes get some mild symptoms in May,
but I don't know whether that's due to high sensitivity to grass, or
mild sensitivity to trees.)

Allergies to wind-pollinated trees is commoner than to insect-pollinated
trees like sycamore, but I did once meet a person with an allergy to
cherry pollen. If you were to be allergic to sycamore pollen this would
be the correct time of year, but you would have to be allergic to
something else for the symptoms to persist through the summer. If your
allergy extends into August you would be looking into something else,
apart from trees and grass.


Michael Bell

--
Stewart Robert Hinsley