It’s something that, as the editor of Visit Fylde Coast, I can provide a first hand and authoritative account of. I’ve read the book and got the T shirt, as they say. I can’t really offer a miracle tip to cure you, but I can give you some advice about living with hayfever!
What is Hayfever?
Hayfever is an allergy to pollen.
Early in the year, tree pollen is the first culprit. Later in the year it’s grass pollen – and of course flowers. It tends to run in families, and often goes hand-in-hand with asthma and eczema.
Symptoms include:
- A runny nose – with usually clear, water-like mucus
- Itchy eyes – the whites can swell up and look very puffy
- Itchy nasal passages, right down the back of your throat
- Sore throat
- Cough
When you’re living with hayfever, basically all of your head itches, runs and feels puffed up. It feels like the inside of your head needs washing under a cold tap!
What’s the Treatment when you’re Living with Hayfever?
There are various ways of dealing with it, depending on the severity of your symptoms. Popular ones include:
- Tablets
- Nose sprays and eye drops
- Herbal and alternative remedies
- De-sensitising injections
- Steroid injections
We’ve tried them all – and then some!
How it Affected Me
Apparently I was about 3 when I started with it. All at once, one summer my eyes turned into boiled eggs, with little raisins stuck in the middle where the iris should be. My mum was panic struck and wondered what on earth was wrong with her daughter who had turned into Kung-Fu.
It marked the start of consecutive summer childhoods of misery. Every year I started sniffling in about April/May and it carried on right until the end of summer. I must have been allergic to every bit of dust in the known universe.
Fortunately, and unlike my grandma, I didn’t have asthma, but I did have quite severe juvenile eczema, and still have very dry skin and odd patches of eczema even now. One year I came out in hives every time I ate strawberries, which was strange.
The impact of a minor ailment…
‘Sniffling’ is the biggest understatement you have ever heard, as my summers were miserable torture from start to finish. My nose ran like a tap. From the end of my nose to the top of my lungs itched incessantly along with my eyes – which you can’t scratch or it makes them ten times worse.
I sneezed ten to the dozen, and if I could have taken my head off to wash it in cold water I would have done. That was all day, all night, all the time, for weeks. I soddenned gents hankies from corner to corner in about half an hour, and would hang one up to dry while I used another one.
After a couple of weeks of this going on day and night, you feel exhausted from all the blowing and sneezing and not being able to sleep. And every year through all of this you are taking the most important exams of your life.
There were three of us who really suffered in my year at school – ironically we were the top three kids in our year. While we were all lined up in rows at our desks doing exams every summer in the school hall it was like relay sniffing, snorting and blowing. The three of us tried to stay awake and not dribble on our exam papers, or drive our classmates up the wall with the noise.
Bear in mind that in those days we sat O and A Level papers without any marks for coursework. Not only did we have to revise through hayfever, we also had to remember everything through a fog of antihistamine tablets. I don’t know how he did it, but one classmate did all his A levels while taking the drowsy type of tablet. He did extremely well and has worked all over the world running all kinds of companies. I don’t know whether he still suffers!
Medical Treatments
I had every type of tablet and treatment you can imagine. I started off with the pretty Histral capsules with pink and white dots inside. Then I went on to Piriton, which are like sleeping tablets and knocked me right out. In those days there weren’t any of the non-drowsy type of tablets to buy.
I had the desensitisation injections over the course of several years – at the time they didn’t seem to work, or maybe they did. They administer them at hospital now, in case you develop a severe reaction and go into shock. I had them at the GPs surgery and at about the age of nine he gave me the syringe to take home and play with. Imagine them doing that today! A couple of times I had steroid injections into the thick muscle in my thigh. It hurts at the time but it did work. However because I was so young they wouldn’t let me have many of those. My then GP didn’t like needles either. She would shake like mad when she had to give someone an injection.
I always took tablets in response to the symptoms. Only recently I learned that you should start taking tablets before the start of the season and take them at a proper dose all the way through your own season. It stops your symptoms from escalating and getting out of control. Maybe that was where I’d been going wrong for all those years.
Then there’s eye drops and nose sprays, aerosols and mists – I could have been a walking drugs trial! After a short while of nose sprays I always got a cough and sore throat. I found the best way of using them was to hold your breath during application. That way the spray stays in your nose rather than going down your throat.
Topical Treatments
You name it I tried it. Cold wet hankies, used teabags and cucumber slices on my eyes to try and control the itch.
Gardening has been a hobby for many years, and you can imagine that gardening and hayfever don’t mix! So I used to fasten a hanky around my face and hope it would filter some of the pollen out. Oh for a 3M covid face mask back then!
You name it!
Then there’s vaseline inside your nostrils, sunglasses, closed windows, washing your hair at night…
In fact I spent most of my summers inside with the windows closed. Most days making for the local swimming baths where I didn’t suffer. As a youngster it was my favourite place. At the end of the street where we lived, it was the only pollen-free place I could find!
I hated sport and the hayfever only made it worse. Then eventually I realised that I could get out of both with a letter from home. My summer games lessons were spent inside doing homework, and sports day helping a teacher with something far more constructive.
Living with Hayfever at the Seaside
We always came on holiday to Blackpool when I was young, for three weeks of pure hayfever-free delight. Here, I could go on the beach, sit in the sun, and go outside like normal people do. Here I could enjoy the hot weather.
I’d been led to believe that as an adult I’d grow out of it. Going into my 30’s it did start to ease off, compared to how awful it had been as a child. But even up to moving to the Fylde Coast I was still suffering. As much as the people will say that they suffer when they have mild symptoms!
As an adult I’ve worked my way through the health shop shelves. I’ve tried local honey, homeopathic remedies, and herbs. Moving to the coast well and truly put the top hat on my hayfever.
Fresh sea air and westerly winds blowing off the sea, means a complete lack of pollen in the air. I can now enjoy normal summers like other people. But it occasionally blows from the East, bringing pollen with it instead of clean sea air. And I get that familiar itch….
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