Green Country is a hard place to have allergies. Cedar and elm start early, oak and grass follow, and ragweed closes the year, so a lot of people here are symptomatic for months rather than weeks. By August the daily antihistamine has stopped touching it, sleep is broken, and what started as hay fever is turning into sinus infections.
For most people, the ordinary treatments work and should be tried first: a steroid nasal spray used properly every day, a non-drowsy antihistamine, saline rinses and keeping the windows shut on high-pollen days. When that genuinely is not enough, there is more we can do.
Late winter into early spring, often before people expect allergy season to start.
Spring, and the reason for the yellow film on every car in April.
Late spring into summer, worse after mowing and on windy days.
Late summer to first frost, and the worst season of the year for many patients.
After heavy rain and through damp autumn leaf fall.
Dust and pets, which keep symptoms going when pollen counts drop.
For patients whose symptoms are severe and seasonal, we offer a long-acting injectable corticosteroid. It is given once, releases slowly over roughly the length of a season, and suppresses the inflammatory response that pollen sets off, rather than blocking histamine after the fact. Patients who have had one tend to describe it as the first autumn in years they could be outside.
It is not a treatment to be casual about, and we will not give it routinely. Systemic steroids carry real risks — effects on blood sugar, blood pressure, mood, sleep, bone density and infection risk — and those grow with repeated exposure. That is why we use it seasonally rather than on demand, why it is not appropriate for people with diabetes, glaucoma, osteoporosis or an active infection, and why we go through your full history first. Some patients are better served by referral for allergy testing and immunotherapy, which treats the cause rather than the season, and we will say so when that is the case.
We stay current with the research and the technology so that every patient is offered care we would want for our own families, with a plan built around your medical history and your goals.
When you become our patient you are treated like family. You are never a number, and you will always be told plainly what a treatment can and cannot do for you.
Modern, evidence-based methods and high-quality products.
We review your full history and build the plan around you.
It is designed to release over roughly three months, which is why it is used once a season rather than on demand. Individual response varies.
For most people an antihistamine plus a steroid nasal spray, used consistently, is enough, and it is where we start. The injection is for people for whom that has genuinely failed.
Systemic steroids can raise blood sugar and blood pressure, disturb sleep and mood, and with repeated use affect bone density and infection risk. We go through your history, and it is not suitable for everyone.
We are cautious about that. Repeat exposure is where most of the risk sits, so if you need it more than seasonally we would rather look at allergy testing and immunotherapy.
We will talk through what is triggering you and refer for formal testing and immunotherapy when that is the better long-term answer.
Yes. Call the clinic. If it has tipped into a sinus infection that needs treating, we can look at that in the same visit.
Call the clinic and we will work out what is realistic for you this season.