All you’ll need to cope with Spring’s misery-making allergies. Debbie Honickman, a Toronto family doctor, never had hay fever as a child. Then in her forties, she started to react to grass in the spring, and could suddenly empathize with her allergy-suffering patients. At first she found her symptoms so difficult “I thought, I can’t [...]

How did the dastardly king of hay fever become so potent and so widespread? Allergic Living investigates. The ragweed in my backyard in the Ottawa Valley waves at me smugly every morning. It has formed a towering wall along the back corner of the small meadow we’ve let flourish as an environmental gesture. All the [...]

All about the cursed weed, and how to beat its pollen.

In autumn, it’s an allergic onslaught. Ragweed and moulds are in procreating mode, filling the air with nasty pollens and spores. Allergic Living magazine examines the season’s biggest offenders, and offers tips to keep the sneezing, watery eyes and general misery at bay. Ragweed Of the sources of autumn allergy misery,ragweed is by far the [...]

For those with grass allergy, a lush lawn can be the bane of summer. Grass allergy is one of the most common pollen allergies, up there with the birch tree and ragweed. In the central and northern United States and Canada, grass generally pollinates in May, June and July. If the Kleenex box is your [...]

There is nothing like the garden. The magic of young plants thriving under the gardener’s care, the bursting forth of vibrant blooms. But if you’ve never donned the cotton gloves for fear of cultivating pollen and misery, you are missing out. It is possible to create a garden that’s almost allergy-free. There’s just some planning [...]

Pollen can set off weeping, blurred vision, itching and rubbing. How do you find relief? When Ken Hegan traveled to Vancouver a couple of years ago, the city was experiencing one of its warmest Februaries on record, and the trees began showering unwitting visitors with an early blast of pollen. “It felt like my eyes [...]

OTTAWA, Jan. 19, 2010 – The Canadian Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology is concerned that the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver and Whistler will be taking place at the peak of the tree pollen season on the West Coast. While the rest of North America and Europe may be suffering a particularly [...]

1. Avoid pollen when you can. Stay indoors during high pollen counts: typically in the morning, and on dry, breezy days. 2. Keep your windows closed, especially during the day. Use an air conditioner instead. 3. Don’t hang laundry outside to dry. It will collect pollen. 4. Wash your hands and other exposed skin when [...]