The Merck Manuals define seasonal allergies as conditions that result from exposure to airborne substances (such as pollens) that appear only during certain times of the year. Typically, seasonal allergy symptoms are triggered by some elements in the environment.

Seasonal allergies occur most often in or around that time of the year when nature comes out in full bloom. Dust content in the air increases, pollen flies around, and people get runny noses or swollen, red eyes. Triggers for seasonal allergies are normally at their worst during the summer or spring. But, armed with adequate information and medication, seasonal allergy relief is easier than you’d think.

Seasonal allergies can be dealt with in many ways. In fact, proper precautions can help you prevent them from happening in the first place. There are some simple precautions you should take if you are prone to having seasonal allergy symptoms, to keep the sniffles and swollen eyes away. Here are a few tips to help you along the way.

Identify Your Triggers

Every allergy is set off because of something in your immediate environment. The first step to keeping yourself safe is to identify what it is that causes your allergies. Keep a close tab on the precise timing during which you begin to feel the seasonal allergy symptoms coming. Then inspect your home and your area of residence to find what apart from the season has changed. It could be something as simple as the blooming or harvesting season for a particular crop or kind of crops that sends your bodily reactions into frenzy. You need to find out what it is that makes this happen. Allergic triggers could even be dust mites and animal dander, which aren’t exactly seasonal, but are likely to affect you more during your allergy-prone season. You can prepare your seasonal allergy relief plan according to your triggers.

Reduce Exposure to Your Triggers

Allergens, also known as triggers, are what cause allergic reactions in people. After you have identified your triggers, you can proceed to eliminate as much of their presence in your life as possible. Frequent and thorough cleaning is crucial to remove any kind of an irritant from your home. Keeping your furniture and upholstery clean and free of dust is highly likely to rid your house of a majority of the allergens that may trigger a strong reaction from your body. Using screens on your doors and windows to keep as much dust out as possible is a very good idea. You should periodically clean and replace these screens when required, too. The same applies to cleaning appliances like vacuum cleaners – they need regular maintenance to maintain optimum performance, failing which, they will cause more harm by spreading dust instead of absorbing it. Animal dander (flakes of their skin often found in their fur) is also known to cause or worsen pre-existing seasonal allergy symptoms. Wiping down pets, and other animals under your care with a cloth dipped in distilled water at least once a week will take care of this problem. For effective seasonal allergy relief, dust mite-proof linen and domestic ware is great and essential aid.

Avoid Situations Involving Exposure to Allergens

If you know that certain situations will bring you in direct contact with the factors that aggravate your allergies, try to avoid the situation altogether. For example, if you need to visit a relative who lives in an area that has the grass bloom that you’re allergic to, you might want to consider visiting when the grass is not in bloom or asking the relative to come meet you somewhere else. If you receive flowers that trigger allergies, a smart way to avoid getting the dreaded seasonal allergy symptoms will be to relocate them in a place where they will be enjoyed, like in a hospital. The point is, you can either avoid the situation itself or avoid the extent to which you will expose yourself to the allergens in an unavoidable situation.

Prepare Yourself for the Season

Seasonal allergy symptoms appear during specific times of the year, so you know when the onset of the allergy is due. Life is bound to come with circumstances under which you will be unable to avoid being exposed to your allergy triggers. In such cases, you can prepare your body to withstand the exposure without incident. Ideally, you should consult a doctor to help find ways to reduce your body’s hyperactive reaction to allergens. There are various over-the-counter medicines that are available to help reduce the overreaction in your body that creates allergies. Antihistamines are a category of oral medicines that are meant to reduce the effect of histamines that your body releases by blocking the target areas where they are directed. Histamines are the human body’s way of trying to eliminate irritants that enter the body in an attempt to keep you safe when you are in an unsafe environment. Seasonal allergy relief involves controlling the hyperactivity of histamines in certain parts of the body. Medications to help you deal with such allergic reactions may also have a sedative effect, so consulting a trained medical practitioner is necessary

Fortify Your Body against Allergies

Although it may seem difficult to believe, seasonal allergies can be eliminated gradually over a variable span of time by forcefully and repeatedly exposing your body to controlled amounts of the allergen. This treatment is only available under the supervision of trained medical personnel. In order to understand how this works, you should first know exactly how an allergy happens. When exposed to an irritant, the body responds by creating and targeting histamines to those parts of the body through which infections (irritants) might enter the body, that is, the eyes, the nose and the throat. This is done to try and make the irritant flow out of the body, but an allergy is when the body goes overboard with this reaction. Histamines cause these to swell and produce mucous or watery discharge, giving you sore eyes, sore throat and a runny nose – all known to be seasonal allergy symptoms. By exposing your body to controlled concentrations of substances that your body overreacts to, you can get your body to register that the substance is not too harmful, so that the reaction is naturally controlled and doesn’t develop into an allergy.

Seasonal allergy relief will be within your reach if you simply follow these guidelines. You will be of great help to medical practitioners if you can identify your triggers and reduce the amount of exposure to them before calling for medical help. Try to find a suitable treatment with your seasonal allergy symptoms in mind, and summers will be happier days in no time.