You may have washed your car this past weekend, but with tree pollen levels high and rain hard to come by, chances are it’ll need another rinse soon.
“I feel like I go through and it’s covered in pollen a second later,” said Cheshire’s Allie Ramos.
That’s great news for the guys over at Espinosa Car Wash in West Hartford, who said they washed between 250 and 300 cars on Mother’s Day.
“The whole year is good, but this time and the winter time, it’s the best,” said Arial Arbleiro, manager at Espinosa Car Wash.
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But when it comes to allergies, the combination of pollen and a stretch of dry weather creates challenges.
“This year in particular it seems like folks are coming in for allergies and they seem more severe, and they’re coming in earlier in the season,” said Dr. Nate Wood, internal medicine doctor at Yale Medicine.
“My eyes will get itchy. I’ll start getting sniffly, end up getting a sinus infection, so I think this year I was like, 'you know what, let me get ahead of the game, start taking Allegra early and I’ve been good,'” said Terryville’s Ana Maria Santos.
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Ramos said she doesn’t get too bad of allergies, but has three kids and a husband who are all affected this time of year.
“It’s a struggle trying to figure out, is it allergies or is it something else? That has also been really stressful,” Ramos said.
Wood said that’s a question many people have been asking when they’ve gone to the doctors office.
“Other viruses cause a lot of the same symptoms as environmental allergies which is sore throat, runny nose,” Wood said. “The itchy eyes is generally pretty much only caused by these environmental allergies.”
Depending on the symptoms, Wood said there are a variety of over-the-counter drugs that can provide relief for itchy eyes or sore throat.
“For anyone who’s not sure what they’re experiencing, or if they’re having more severe symptoms like those fevers or chills, or if their symptoms are not controlled with those over-the-counter medications, I really do recommend going to the doctor,” Wood said.
He said based the patients he’s seen, cases of respiratory viruses like RSV or COVID-19 are relatively low, and that most can blame the symptoms on the season.
