Sneeze, Wheeze, Gasp!
Hay Fever Victims Suffer as Area Pollen Count Soars
Debbie Adams knows when it’s spring. She can’t smell it.
The 36-year-old nurse has a pollen-sensitive nose that sort of shuts down at this time of year, which is something of an occupational handicap: Adams works in an allergy clinic in the District, and it’s her job to collect pollen grains each morning-and count them.
“When the count is under 100, you feel like you want to sneeze 12 hours a day,” she said. “When it’s over 100, you want to rip your face off.”
Adams is not alone. In Washington, often called the allergy capital of the world, she and at least 150,000 to 200,000 area asthma or hay fever sufferers are having an especially miserable time of it.
The pollen count hit 256 on Friday, a high so far this year, and the folks who keep track of such things say pollen levels are worse than usual, even for this town.
The region’s pollen-plagued patients are filling up doctors’ offices as fast as smelling the roses fills up their sinuses. Some allergy clinics are treating 60 to 80 people a day for this seasonal malady, which can stretch from March through October, depending upon the sufferer’s sensitivity to tree, grass or weed pollen.
“A lot of people call this the allergy capital of the world,” said Dr. William F. Thompson, an allergist. “It’s bad because we have a lot of different types of pollen and a fairly long pollen season, but I’m not sure we can say we’re Number One or Number 10.”
So how bad is it? In Washington, at least, where high winds stir the pollen and spread its mischief, reports indicate that every little breeze whispers more than Louise.
“Overall, the pollen count is a lot higher this year,” said Bob Day, environmental health director at the National Capital Area Lung Associations.
The Friday count of 256, the most recent available, is a reassurance of sorts that the air is as pollen-heavy as one’s itchy eyes and stuffy nose might suggest. By way of comparison, doctors say a count of 10 or more is enough to cause symptoms in the majority of patients with pollen allergy. And when it starts pushing 60 or 70, those with allergies are supposed to stay off the golf course and forgo mowing the lawn.
While the high last year was a mere 239, sufferers can take comfort perhaps in knowing that it has been worse. The record pollen peak in recent years occurred on May 2, 1986, when the count shot up to a head-splitting 280.
For Mae B. Staton, 44, that much pollen is life-threatening.
“It’s something killing me like a slow death,” said Staton, a District resident whose multiple allergies often send her to the hospital emergency room.
She receives two to three allergy-fighting injections a week and wears a mask over her nose and mouth whenever she goes outside. Still, her allergic reaction to pollen produces fluids that build up in her eyes and nose, cause pounding headaches and drain down her throat.
“I have to stay in because when I go out, it makes me sick,” said Staton, who keeps the air conditioning or humidifier turned on in her home virtually nonstop.
Nurse Adams, on the other hand, braves the elements . . . and suffers the consequences. Each weekday morning between 7 and 8 a.m., she heads for the roof of the downtown medical building that houses Thompson and Yuill Black’s allergy clinic.
There, she collects the gel-coated slide put out the day before to catch pollen particles in the air. Back at the office, she puts the slide under a microscope and, in the true sense of the word, painstakingly counts the number of pollen grains-a count immediately relayed to the Air Quality Information Service telephone tape (682-0677).
When the count is high, Adams can feel the pressure in her sinuses even before she puts the slide under the microscope. When it’s really high, her eyes water while she is counting.
“My nose can swell up to the point where I can’t breathe,” she said. “It’s like a head cold with no cold.”
The high count has kept allergy physicians busy, too busy in some instances to discuss the finer points of pollen with anyone but their patients. And more than a few doctors, some for the first time, have had to put themselves on the allergy sick list.
“I’ve really felt it this year, and I’m going to take shots,” said Robert Pumphrey, a physician with the Ear, Nose and Throat Medical Group in the District. “Washington has more than its share of airborne substances.”
But it’s obviously not the only place with a problem. An estimated 24 million Americans suffer from asthma or hay fever, conditions caused or aggravated by an allergy to airborne pollens.
Pollen is the fine, powder-like material produced by flowering plants, and it functions as the male element in fertilization. In pollination, insects or the wind carry the pollen to its female counterpart. But the wind also spreads it to people.
“If there was no wind, the pollen would just drop off and fall to the ground,” said Pumphrey, who paints a rather pathetic portrait of the Washington environment and its impact on allergy sufferers.
North America in general and the region in particular, according to Pumphrey, have temperate climates and a lot of trees that reproduce by windborne pollination. In addition, an urbanized area such as this, where land has been cleared for development, is a breeding ground for weeds, especially ragweed.
And, as if that’s not enough, the District also has to contend with mold, a souvenir of its birth atop reclaimed swampland, and air pollution.
“This area has something to bother people all year round,” Pumphrey said. “The tree pollen starts arriving in late February, then the grass pollens in April and May and then the weeds into July and August. The ragweed season lasts till the first frost, then all the leaves drop off and you get mold, and the wind blows that around.”
In 1966, Kimishige Ishizaka, now at Johns Hopkins University, isolated and identified the antibody, immunoglobulin E, or IgE, that causes the allergic reaction to pollen. Since then, scientists have developed more accurate techniques for desensitizing the body and turning off this reaction.
At the same time, antihistamine pills, particularly a brand advertised as Seldane, and steroid nose sprays bring some relief from swelling and inflammation, according to several physicians.
The injections, pills and doctors visits add up, however. Allergy and asthma sufferers in this country may spend as much as $1 billion a year on allergy treatment, according to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Adams said weekly shots “during my bad times” help her function. “Otherwise I would walk around with Kleenex stuffed up each nostril and be absolutely useless.”
Tim Logue, 34, another pollen sufferer, also takes weekly injections during the allergy season-and fights with his car pool members to keep the windows of the vehicle closed.
“The drive home used to be, and still is, a point of dread during high pollen days if it’s not warm enough to put on the air conditioning,” Logue said.
Martha Ellis, a maintenance supervisor with the U.S. Park Service, finds that a lot of the available medication leaves her drowsy.
Her job keeps her outdoors no matter what the pollen count, so she takes an antihistamine pill in the morning, when she feels most alert.
For coworkers who need more protection, the Park Service provides paper dust masks and plastic air filters.
Allergists recommend that pollen sufferers stay in air-conditioned rooms as much as possible, sleep with their bedroom windows closed and drive in air-conditioned cars, even on comfortable days.
If all else fails, consider moving.
Pollen dust hits the Midwest the hardest, according to allergists, with the East a close second. The southern tip of Florida and the northern tip of Maine are more pollen free, while the Western states supposedly offer the most relief.
But be careful, lest you head west and expose yourself to a whole new set of allergies. Arizona, for instance, has tumbleweed and sagebrush. It also has grass, much of it planted by pollen sufferers who relocated.
“I have a couple of patients who went to Tucson and wrote back, `I’m not better here,’ ” Thompson said. “We have problems pretty much all over.”
The pollen invasion
As the pollen season starts up, allergy sufferers are feeling the effects. Microscopic grains of pollen released by budding plants and trees drift through the air. When the pollen is inhaled it binds to the moist walls of the nasal passages. The immune systems of allergy sufferers overreact to the pollen invasion, releasing chemicals that cause the sneezing, congestion and itching of hay fever.
Trees: Oak, maple, birch, elm, box elder, cedar and junipers, hickory, mulberry, ash, cottonwood, poplar, hackberry, beech, local pines
Grass: Timothy grass, Bermuda grass, redtop, vernal grass, orchard grass, rye grass, bluegrass, June grass, Johnson grass
Weeds: Ragweed, pigweed, lamb’s quarters, Mexican firebrush, cocklebur, plantain, dock, sorrel
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