Do you feel like you've been put through a meat grinder?
What seasonal phenomenon may be responsible for this
Created: 05/17/2022, 09:35 am
By: Juliane Gutmann
You wake up with swollen eyes and a pounding headache and feel like you've been beaten: In the spring, many people complain about hay fever symptoms again.
You can find out what is flying now here.
Yellow dots are currently on everything that is outdoors.
Bicycles, balcony tables, cars: flower dust and pollen stop at nothing, including our respiratory tract.
People with pollen allergies (also called hay fever) then react with various symptoms.
An overview of the
most common hay fever symptoms:
Red, watery and itchy eyes
sneeze
Runny and stuffy nose
Scratchy throat
Cough (which can develop into allergic asthma)
Skin reactions such as itchy patches
headache
sleep disorders
Fatigue, tiredness, reduced performance
The yellow pollen of the spruce is currently covering large parts of Germany.
Here: the view of the valley from the Patscherkofel in Austria.
© Michael Kristen/Imago
Pollen survey
Do you suspect you have a pollen allergy?
Anyone who is currently showing the above symptoms is probably reacting primarily to the pollen from oak and common beech.
As can be seen from the current newsletter of the German Pollen Information Service (PID), seasonal peaks in pollution were reached here, above all in the northern half of Germany.
"
Also spruce and beginning with the pine laid their conspicuous but harmless yellow veil of pollen over the landscape
," says the newsletter published on May 11th.
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Birch pollen allergy sufferers, on the other hand, can slowly breathe a sigh of relief: the pollen load from birch trees is currently falling.
However, now is the time for grasses:
According to the PID, the focus is slowly shifting from the allergy-causing tree pollen to the allergenic grass pollen
.
“It is gradually becoming uncomfortable for those allergic to grass pollen, and as is so often the case, first in the low-lying, grassland-rich river valleys of the Rhine, Main and Danube and their surroundings.
Here, in the vicinity of unmown meadows and beyond, things can get 'heavy' in the coming days, meaning there are signs of high levels of grass pollen for the first time this year!”, according to the PID information.
(jg)