The snow melts. The sun comes out. But that doesn’t mean the winter storm is behind you.
Winter storms and prolonged indoor confinement can cause winter allergies in some that linger for awhile. And it's not the cedar fever common in North Texas this time of year.
KERA’s Sam Baker talks about this with Dr. Lara Gross, an allergist with Texas Health Dallas.
Dr. Gross: Some of the main indoor allergic triggers are dust mites and molds, and both of those thrive with moisture. When there are storms during the winter, those allow the dust mites and the molds to grow and to be more present and more prolific inside.
And the other factor is when the weather outside isn't great, people are spending more time indoors. So, that combination is a setup. That leads to a lot of allergy sufferers to unfortunately get quite miserable.
Baker: You'd think being confined to the house at the very least, in addition maybe to staying warm, would kind of protect you a bit.
Dr. Gross: But it actually turns out being in the house is where the dust mites live. Those aren't really outdoors. So, someone is allergic to dust mites by staying in the House. You're not getting a break from one of your potential triggers.
Baker: With mold, are we talking about a mold, lingering mold, mold that has been there all along, or is this something that tends to form more under these type of conditions?
Dr. Gross: So, it typically is something that has been there, but more does form when it is moist outside and allows the mold to grow. So, it's unusual to all of a sudden out of nowhere develop new mold.
But if you have some mold in the air, which many homes do, especially older homes, that's something that happens naturally in the moist winter storm conditions, there's just more present.
Baker: So, the winter allergies that develop indoors, these can lead to what kind of symptoms?
Dr. Gross: So, stuffy nose, itchy eyes, sneezing, runny nose, post-nasal drip that can cause a sore throat.
Unfortunately, it can be difficult sometimes to distinguish allergies from mild cold or a mild viral illness, but it's the indoor allergy symptoms we see from these winter storm-related triggers are very similar to the outdoor cedar allergy.
Baker: How do you distinguish the difference between the symptoms you get for winter allergy and from simply having a cold?
Dr. Gross: It can be quite difficult sometimes.
Sneezing can happen with a cold. It's typically more common with allergies. If someone has a fever, that is usually a cold type symptom.
And something that can be helpful is knowing your triggers. If this is happening every year at the same time or tends to happen after you've been in a certain environment, that's often allergies, another good test can be do allergy medicines like the over-the-counter antihistamines help, and if those are helpful, that's another sign it's allergies and probably not a lingering cold.
Baker: This was the one that struck me as odd. Can you really be allergic to cold weather?
Dr. Gross: In a sense. There are some people who have cold induced urticaria -fancy term for hives caused by cold. There are people that will get these red itchy bumps or hives from cold exposure. And that can be cold temperatures outside or cold water sometimes or holding, you know, touching something cold.
And interestingly, it's actually usually when the person starts to warm up after being out in that cold air that they get the hives. But yes, people can get hives from being out in the cold.
Baker: So how do you guard against that?
Dr. Gross: You try and stay warm and inside. There are some medications that we try to use to help with that and decrease the reactivity in the hives, but sometimes unfortunately, it's a matter of avoiding the cold to avoid that trigger.
Baker: Knowing though that another cold spell may be coming up in advance, is that time for good old-fashioned house cleaning?
Dr. Gross: That can be, yes.
The downside of a house cleaning is that may stir up all the dust with the dust mites in it. So, if you're going to do that, I actually tell a lot of my patients to wear a mask while they're cleaning and afterwards use some of that saline spray to rinse everything out of their nasal passages.
RESOURCES:
Is It a Cold or Winter Allergies? How to Tell the Difference in Kids
