Sometimes, it can be hard to keep your health tip-top with age, especially when everything feels like an uphill battle compared to being in your teens, twenties, and thirties (some would even count forties here, too). But really, there’s a certain point where allergy season stops feeling like a mild seasonal nuisance and starts feeling harder to manage. Colds are already bad, but allergy season is weeks; it’s basically a whole season. So one bit of pollen in the air and pretty much the whole day feels off, you could say it’s pretty much just ruined!
Your eyes are watery, your throat feels scratchy, your head feels stuffed up, sleep’s been horrible, and somehow your body’s acting like it’s been through something major when that’s literally not even the case. But that’s age, anything is heavier, a glass of wine basically leads to a hangover, where you take days to recover. Oh, and life drains you, of course, can’t forget that here either.
So, is there even a better way to manage allergy season with age, or are you just stuck accepting that it’ll forever be horrible?
Ideally, Start Earlier than You Feel Like You Need To
But why? Well, a lot of people wait until they already feel rough before they do anything useful, and okay, that’s very human, but it’s also how the whole thing gets harder than it needs to be. No, really, think about it here for a moment, because by the time the eyes are streaming, the throat’s irritated, and the energy’s in the bin, it already feels like the season’s got the upper hand.
You see the issue? Because it tends to go better when the routine starts before things really flare. So, just be sure to start paying attention to when symptoms usually kick off, checking pollen levels if that’s helpful, thinking ahead before a high-pollen day, all of that can take some pressure off. Oh, and believe it or not, here, but people know their own patterns more than they think they do. There’s usually that stretch of the year where everything starts feeling suspicious, right, and acting a bit earlier can save a lot of pointless suffering later.
Stop Carrying the Outside Back into the House
A lot of people tend not to do this one because it inconveniences themselves, even though technically, you’re being inconvenienced already by dealing with your allergies. So, maybe you’ve heard it already, but yes, as soon as you get home, you should change your clothes, better yet, hop in the shower and wash off all the pollen. That’s it, really; it’s about removing everything the second you get into your safe haven.
Pollen has a nasty little habit of coming indoors and making itself very comfortable. It sits on clothes, shoes, hair, bedding, soft furnishings, all the places nobody wants it hanging around. So yeah, making home feel a bit more like a relief and a bit less like an extension of the outdoors can really help. Now, sure, it’s still a lot of work, it’s a lot of work having to vacuum daily, having to wash textiles regularly, having to vacuum (not sweep but actually vacuum) daily, and sure, it’s a lot of work, but this can actually make a difference.
Just Don’t Ignore the General “I Feel Rough” Part
Well, bluntly put, good luck actually ignoring it. Props to you if you actually can. But people focus on sneezing and blocked noses because those are the obvious allergy symptoms, but honestly, the scratchy throat, dry mouth, and just generally feeling a bit wrecked are often the bits that wear people down most. And you’ll probably get into a bad mood too. It’s that low-level constant irritation that starts making everything feel harder than it should. Usually, for the average person here, sleep gets patchy, breathing through the mouth doesn’t help, and then the whole body starts feeling a bit battered by the experience.
Depending on your routine during allergy season (as some people just try and tough it out), it can help to having things on hand to sooth things over like having some honey in your tea if you’re a tea drinker, lozenges should be in every mediicne cabinet, some people like using propolis drops or spray for their throat, and of course there’s the allergy medicine that you can get prescribed from yout GP.
But just be prepared, and stop thinking you can tough this out; the older you get, the harder it is to make it happen.
