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Posts Tagged ‘Seasonal Allergies’

Seasonal allergies can make you miserable this time of year. From the itchy eyes and watery noses, the symptoms can be unbearable. While nothing guarantees that your allergies won’t flair up this season, there are some helpful tips that you can follow that will lessen the effects they have on your life. Don’t let seasonal allergies ruin your day, put these tips to work for you!

1. Step one requires a trip to your doctor. Make sure you get the proper treatment to help with your allergy symptoms by discussing the severity of your allergies with a physician. They will be able to conduct tests and make observations, and from that make proper recommendations for your specific allergy symptoms.

2. Step two is identifying your allergy triggers. This not only can help you stave off potential attacks, but can also be a great way in predicting the severity of your allergies in a given season. While other factors, including weather, are contributors, using the allergy forecast available from your local news channel is the best way to predict the severity of your seasonal allergies.

3. Step three is to protect yourself at all times. This can include simple procedures such as wearing a mask when gardening or mowing, and wearing sunglasses to limit the amount of pollen entering your eyes. All of these small steps can help keep your seasonal allergies from being unbearable. Also, try limiting your outdoor time to early mornings and late evenings. Plants are less active during this time, and flair ups will be less prevalent.

4. Step 4 is to watch the food you consume. While it may seem like a nonsense notion, certain foods have been shown to cause ragweed allergies to be intensified, and thus make your allergy break outs more severe. Try experimenting, and see which foods cause you more discomfort to weed out your triggers.

5. The fifth step is to keep your house clean and your windows closed. While it can be tempting to leave your windows open, doing so brings all the things that trigger your allergies inside. This leads to poor sleep quality, which impedes the immune system and may cause your seasonal allergy symptoms to worsen.

Does your dog suffer from seasonal dog allergies? Are you suddenly avoiding sitting to close to your favorite pup for fear of being sneezed and slobbered on? Our dog Maddie that we adopted last fall has developed seasonal allergies and when she starts with one of her sneezing fits, everyone runs for cover! Poor girl…

It’s actually quite common for dogs to have seasonal allergies just like we do. When spring rolls around, dogs often begin spending more time outdoors than they do in the winter. This exposes them to the normal allergy causing culprits such as pollen and grasses and with this exposure comes the typical symptoms we all can experience.

It is actually normal for a dog to sneeze occasionally the same as a human. So occasional sneezing is nothing to be concerned about but if your dog is having recurrent sneezing, it’s time to do some evaluation of their symptoms.

Begin by allowing them access to fresh drink of water. This alone can clean out the nasal passage of various irritants. After allowing them a little bit of time to get a thorough drink, give them a few minutes to allow time for their sneezing to stop. If after a reasonable amount of time, the sneezing does not stop, it’s time to do a more careful assessment.

This is where you’ll need to examine your dog’s physical symptoms.

First, check their nose. Is there nasal discharge? If so, is it clear or does it have a yellow or green color to it? Clear discharge is ok but a colored discharge likely indicates an infection. If this is the case, it’s time for a visit to the vet. Check their eyes next for both drainage and clearness. Are their eyes watering and have lots of “crusties” in the corner? Check their face for swelling or for one side being larger than the other. This can definitely be a symptom of allergies or an insect bite or sting. Check their breathing. Are they taking nice clear breaths and exhaling evenly or does it sound raspy or even blocked on one side? This could indicate a potential blockage or swelling inside the naval cavity. If any of these symptoms are severe or beyond what appears to be normal seasonal allergies, you should make an appointment with your veterinarian immediately. If you are unsure, call your vet to get more information and advice.

What You Can Do For Your Dog’s Seasonal Allergies

If your dog has seasonal allergies, they are likely reacting to pollens and grasses that are quickly growing this time of year. Sometimes these allergies can pass quickly as a particular plant comes and goes but if they continue, you can give your dog relief with regular antihistamines. Some of the most popular human antihistamines that can be used are:

Common antihistamines for dogs include:

Benadryl (diphenhydramine) Atarax/Vistaryl (hydroxyzine) Chlortrimeton (chlorpheniramine) Tavist (clemastine) Periactin (cyproheptadine) Temaril (trimeprazine)

Antihistamines work by blocking the histamine from the receptors. This prevents the allergy symptoms from happening. It is noteworthy to mention that antihistamines work the best when given before your dog exhibits symptoms.

It’s very important to check with your veterinarian for specific dosages for your individual dog. As with humans, dogs can experience side effects from antihistamines too. For example, your dog may become drowsy with the medication, in which case it’s important that you keep them in where you can monitor them. Allowing a medicated, drowsy dog to run can be dangerous. The potential for a fight with another dog or even wandering into the street in front of a car could be deadly in that state.

When you are assessing your dog’s symptoms, be sure to consider the following as potential causes. If your dog spends part of their day outside, then consider the things your dog may have come in contact with. Most dogs are highly curious and will spend a good portion of their outdoor time checking out new and interesting items.

This can include flowers, plants and even bees or wasp. Unfortunately, all of this sniffing and smelling can lead to a blockage of their nasal passages, inflammation, swelling, pain and of course sneezing. If your dog continues to suffer and sneeze or if their sneezing produced a bloody discharge, the blockage can be serious and you should seek veterinarian treatment immediately.

When you examined your dog, did you find any swelling or evidence of bites or stings? I want to mention for those that live in areas with snakes and especially rattle snakes, it’s quite common for an over curious dog to get just a little too close and be a little too slow to avoid a strike. This happens all of the time in the area we live.

Generally though, you will know immediately something is wrong. The swelling will be fast and severe. Get your dog to a veterinarian immediately for treatment. Our veterinarian recommends keeping Dexamethasone (a potent synthetic member steroid drugs. It acts as an anti-inflammatory and immunosuppresant. It’s about 20-30 times more potent that hydro-cortisone and 4-5 times of prednisone.) on hand for immediate treatment until you can get them to the vet – which in our case is an hour away one way. Remember, always check with your veterinarian before administering any medication to your dog.

Finally, if their breathing seems to be labored in anyway or they are just having difficulty in breathing through their air passage, seek your veterinarian’s help immediately. Also, once you have treated your dog with medication, if you do not see improvement, it’s time to contact the veterinarian.

It’s important to remember that dog’s can have potential allergies for a variety of things that can cause sneezing and itching and various other allergy symptoms. The problem isn’t always environmental and can sometimes be a skin condition or an allergy to their dog food for example. So make sure to take into consideration all of your dog’s issues before choosing a treatment option.

Understanding seasonal allergies and asthma is a great advantage to everyone. It can be useful the same as the treatments prescribed by your doctor. Remember that asthma can hit anyone anytime and anywhere. It’s not a guarantee that because you feel safe that you’re really safe from this chronic illness.

On the other hand, seasonal allergies can occur at different times of the year. Although they may come once in a while, they can surely cause asthma. Sometimes it can even cause your health condition to worsen. Common symptoms of this includes watery and red eyes, sneezing, runny nose and itchiness of your skin.

Seasons, Allergies, and Asthma

Causes

Allergies can come in different seasons. Blame summer allergies are usually brought by weed or grasses. Allergies during the spring are caused by tree pollens. Allergies during the fall are usually caused by ragweed.

Effects

Seasonal allergies can cause an asthmatic person to suffer from difficulties. It can lead to sinusitis that can cause chest tightness and pain. Seasonal allergies can also result to certain respiratory problems.

Asthmatic person

The effect that allergies can have on asthma differs from an asthmatic person. There are times that a person can experience frequent asthma attacks on spring seasons and less on other seasons. This can lead to coughing, wheezing, breathing difficulty and sometimes worse, chest pains.

Chest tightening

Tightening of the chest can lead to shortness of breath. It’s like there’s something stuck in the airway passage. It seems impossible to breathe. This includes shallow breathing, chest pains and chest congestion.

Considerations

Be careful when dealing with allergies that only occur during certain season. Stay prepared at these times because they are always present at your side. Once affected, it can cause a physical and emotional discomfort. If you’re not prepared enough, you can suffer from allergies all year round.

Prevention

Seasonal allergies are difficult to prevent since the sources occur naturally. However, you can manage the symptoms. You can use home air cleaners to clean the air that you breathe. You can also keep the windows or doors closed to prevent them from getting inside your home. One of the best is to take proper medication.

Knowing how to deal with allergies and allergic asthma is a great way to make yourself prepared. If you’re not prepared, you’ll find yourself ending up on a hospital’s bed.