Not Just Sneezing — Signs of Seasonal Allergies You May Be Missing
When most people think of seasonal allergies, they think of itching, sniffling and sneezing. There are other symptoms that can appear seasonally which can be attributed to allergy, too. Since they’re less known allergy symptoms, you may not even notice that they arrive at the same time each year — think throat clearing, dark circles under the eyes, and fatigue.
In this blog, learn how all three can be related to allergy, and how treating the cause can help alleviate these recurring symptoms.
Throat Clearing
We all know someone at the office or the gym who constantly clears his or her throat. It’s not just irritating to others, but it’s irritating to the cougher too. Often, the cause of the chronic cough or throat clearing is allergy.
When you breathe in pollen, your body can create excess mucus as a response. If it doesn’t run out of your nose, it will likely run down your throat. This is often called postnasal drip, which leads to the never-ending throat clearing.
Treating the cause of your allergies can reduce the mucus response when allergens are present, which helps get rid of the constant cough.
Dark Under-Eye Circles
Another annoying sign of allergy is dark circles under the eyes. When the cause is allergy, they look a little blue or purple, almost bruised — a lot of people relate it to a shadow under the eye. There’s typically no pain associated with it other than the typical allergy symptoms you may also experience.
Why does this happen? The nasal cavities become inflamed when exposed to your problematic allergens, leading blood to pool under the eye. The dark “allergic shiners” may come and go during your allergy season, but some people see them linger all year.
When your body stops seeing allergens as problematic after successful immunotherapy treatment, the inflammation should go down, and allergic shiners may fade away.
Tiredness and Fatigue
When your body is constantly in “fight mode” toward your allergens, it just makes sense that you may start to feel run down and fatigued. Allergy exposure can last months, leaving your body fatigued by the time pollen winds down.
On top of that, if the congestion is keeping you up at night, the loss of sleep can lead to overall tiredness during the day. This can cause other issues, like lack of focus and decreased productivity for both adults and children in school.
By treating the cause of your allergies, you can stop this “fight response” when your allergens are present, and you may be able to stop taking allergy medications that add to your drowsiness.
Treat the Cause
If you’re ready to get to the cause of any of these seasonal symptoms, find an allergy provider near you that can diagnose your allergies and create a treatment plan personal to you. Allergy immunotherapy is the only treatment that treats the cause of allergies, and sublingual immunotherapy (or allergy drops) are a safe, affordable and convenient option.