Its the time of wonder and joy as the sun shines, the poppys pop, the birds tweet and the bees buzz. Spring is here with it’s glory days of sunshine, temperate days and colour soaked splendour. And yet there are a part of the population that begin ducking for cover, hoarding tissues and walk outside with some trepidation - its ALLERGY season.
For 17% of the population in Australia snuffles and sneezes, runny eyes and red noses become the order of the day as the sun begins to blaze across our southern skies. And yet oddly enough, Australia has a peculiar relationship with allergens and irritable stimulations of our orifices. Oddly for Australians, hayfever is not necessarily the cause of our woes and worrysome noses at this time. Our unique antipodean location has a rather different take on the allergy season in that our allergens are not necessarily just limited to the spring season.
Grass seeds are the unique feature of the Australian allergy season and these can create year round problems depending on the sprouting season for the different native grasses in your geographical location. It would appear that your geographical location can have an influence on the severity and the timing of your allergy and symptoms according to Associate Professor, Janet Davies at the School of Biomedical Science at QUT in Brisbane.
In Australia, grass pollens are our top allergy stimulant and these airborne particles are carried on the wind, swirling about the city and into our faces. These temperate grasses (such as Ryegrass) all flower at different times around the country so it is very normal for people in NSW, the ACT and Victoria to have differing allergy seasons than those further north of the country. Likewise the eastern seaboards bears a difference to the central australian landscape or the west coast.
In the Northern parts of Australia, Bermuda grasses and Johnson grasses have a latter sprouting season and these can cause year long seasons of allergy response as these grasses are active in the summer and autumn months. Locations such as Adelaide, Sydney and Canberra can suffer during both of these seasons depending on which grass is sprouting and sending seeds into the air.
These grasses are used all over the landscape for differing purposes from rural areas for feed to city areas for council parklands and golf courses. It’s difficult to try and avoid these grasses permanently and its also a reason why some symptoms tend to present themselves all year round. Whilst pollen is usually released in the morning hours, heavy winds can whip up allergens in the air and make them spread all day long resulting in certain periods where sufferers may need to be more mindful of their outdoor interactions when pollen counts are high.
Whilst grass seeds are our top allergen the dreaded London Plane Tree which is used to decorate many roads in Sydneys Eastern suburbs is a dreaded site for many hayfever sufferers - and with good cause. Whilst the London Plane tree doesn’t necessarily cause an allergen response, it does produce fine hairs called trichomes from its seed pods that definetly irritate mucous linings and create issues with oral linings, getting lodged deep in the throat and back fo the mouth. The Plane Tree pollen sprout occurs at the same time as the grass seeds and so are sometimes wrongly accused for causing allergy reactions, when in fact there is limited evidence to suggest this is the case.
This is also famously tree for native Wattle species. The blankets of small yellow flowers are often scourged by hayfever sufferers for causing symptoms when in fact, the wattle pallen is too heavy to travel very far and is not whipped up by wind and transported around. Sure, if you go and roll around under a wattle tree in the yellow blanket of flowers you may suffer but for hayfever sufferers, you can be safe around the wattle trees and walk past them with ease.
There are also some symptoms that align with hayfever which are perhaps not as obvious as the runny noses and itchy eyes. Oral Allergy Syndrome is a particular condition that involves itchiness in the roof of the mouth (hard palate) and even some swelling of the mouth cavity and an allergic type reaction to certain foods in their natural form. This syndrome is directly related to the Silver Birch tree which has a short pollen season fo 2-3 weeks in the latter winter (Aug-Sep). Whilst these trees are much more common in Europe, they are increasingly popular in ornamental gardens in Australia owing to their thick foliage and quick growth.
They symptoms of OAS include a sensitivity to certain nuts and fruits with diarrhoea and in some cases, vomiting and abdominal pain when ingesting fruits such as apples, cherries, pears and plums. Oddly these foods do not illicit the reaction when they are cooked owing to the change in structure of the foodstuff which doesn’t interact with the pollen in quite the same way. There are other foods that have a lesser reaction to this pollen including hazelnuts, celery, carrot, soybean, pineapple and bananas which can also be a way of detecting this particular type of allergy. Any concerns about OAS should be discussed with your GP.
You will often see Pollen Counts on most weather apps and news reports now and this is a good indicator for people who do suffer from pollen allergy. Knowing the wind factors also makes a big difference as heavy winds in cities do whip up. SO being aware of what the weather is doing makes a difference if you do suffer from apparent hayfever or allergy responses. Believe me, I’ve learnt this with my regular riding around Sydney - beware the windy days and don’t blame the wattle.
