What is Hay-fever?
Hay-fever describes an allergic reaction to environmental particles such as pollen or grass. Symptoms include sneezing, itchy eyes, runny nose (rhinitis) and wheezing. These symptoms can vary from mild to severe and can be quite debilitating. Many adults and children find that work, school and leisure activities can be significantly affected.
What is Rhinitis?
Rhinitis describes nasal symptoms caused by inflammation of the nose. These symptoms include blocked nose, sneezing, itching and mucous production. Rhinitis is often linked with eye and sinus symptoms. Sometimes it can also cause a persistent cough due to post nasal drip. Rhinitis can have allergic and non-allergic causes and is often one of the symptoms of hay fever.
What is asthma?
Asthma is a condition where the smaller airways become inflamed causing wheezing, cough and breathing difficulties. Asthma can also have allergic and non allergic causes. Many asthma sufferers can find that their asthma flares up in the hay fever season.
Allergic causes of hay-fever, rhinitis and asthma
Allergic causes of hay-fever, rhinitis and asthma commonly include tree pollens, grass pollens, house dust mites, pets and moulds. Allergens such as tree pollens and grass pollens lead to seasonal symptoms. However, causes such as the house dust mite, can see symptoms persisting all year round.
Diagnosis
At our allergy clinic, we take a comprehensive history of your symptoms and will undertake any necessary allergy testing. These tests include skin prick testing as well as specific IgE blood tests for allergy. We are able to perform immediate skin prick testing with a wide range of allergens, giving you a result within 15 minutes. Skin prick testing is very safe to perform and is not painful. Although, it is not suitable if you have poorly controlled asthma, we can still do a specific IgE blood test in these situations. Specific IgE blood tests look for reactions against a variety of different allergens.
