Allergy season 2023: How to give your sinuses some relief

If your gut is telling you your allergies are worse this year, you’re right.

The warm, dry spring means more grass and tree pollen this season, said Tanya Tanzillo, a professor at Northern Illinois University’s College of Health and Human Sciences.

She pointed to the cottonwood puffs blanketing some McHenry County areas in the past month as an example of how intense pollen is this season. Pollen not seen with the naked eye has been similarly bad.

Even the microscopic pollen can be obvious, Sarah Carrigan of Algonquin said. She and two of her daughters suffer from seasonal allergies.

Her car has looked green from the pollen covering it this season, as did the family’s trampoline.

“This year, definitely spring and summer, they were rough this year,” Carrigan said of the family’s allergies. Her symptoms include head congestion and sinus pressure.

There are things allergy sufferers can do to help mitigate the effects of seasonal allergies, Tanzillo said.

As a nurse practitioner, Tanzillo has a focus on functional wellness: how her patients feel and function and what they can do to improve those things.

For some, that allergy relief can start in the gut.

“Having a healthy gut means having a healthy immune system,” Tanzillo said. “Having a healthy diet is a huge component that we don’t talk about” when it comes to allergies.

A healthy gut – the colon – means a good mix of bacteria inside of it. A non-healthy, or a “leaky” gut, means the bad bacteria can inflame the immune system, and an inflamed immune system means more susceptibility to allergies, Tanzillo said.

Gluten and dairy can also mess with the gut biome.

“Those are two of the bigger food groups that have more of an allergic propensity,” she said.

Giving up one or both, either individually or at the same time, can help allergy suffers see if those foods are making their allergies worse.

Stress can also have a huge impact on how a body reacts to allergens.

“When we are super stressed out, it is not good for our body. An overall better life balance – that also helps our immune system and our gut health,” Tanzillo said.

When the weather warms up, people love to open their windows and get fresh air in. That can be a bad idea for those with allergies, she said. A good air purifier can help clean indoor allergens, like pet dander and dust mites, but washing bedding regularly and showering after being outside can also help wash away the pollens that aggravate the sinuses.

Kyle Knar, a Fox River Grove resident, has noticed how important showering is to alleviate some of his allergy symptoms.

“I’m outside for work almost every single day and when allergy season comes around, nothing works better than taking a hot shower to quickly relieve my symptoms, I almost instantly feel better once I’m done,” Knar said.

Carrigan said she tells her children to wash their hands when they come in from playing outside to get the pollens off of them.

“Household wise, I wipe everything down, and hose everything off during the pollen season,” she said.

Over the counter medications – which used to be by prescription only – also help. Tanzillo recommends the longer-acting, 12- to 24-hour products and nasal sprays to help control symptoms.

If bad allergies persist, sufferers can see an allergist to determine what is causing their reactions. Allergy shots may be recommended.

The shots are a form of immunotherapy. Each shot contains a small amount of the specific substance that causes a person’s allergy response.

That, Tanzillo said, is part of the reasoning behind consuming honey as a way to alleviate symptoms. Some allergy sufferers swear by eating a teaspoon of local honey – honey gathered from hives near where they live – as a way of staving off symptoms. As the bees are collecting the same pollens, the theory is it can help a body get acclimated to the allergens.

She’s heard of using honey to help with allergies, Carrigan said, but she hasn’t tried it yet. She’s interested in it though and is considering trying it to get through the season.

“I have a daughter that loves tea and honey,” she said.

For her, the allergies have seemed to be worse in the past two years. “It has gotten worse as I have gotten older.”

More people are also reporting environmental allergies each year, Tanzillo said.

“Part of that is: we used to play more in the dirt” and have childhood exposure to environmental allergens. Now, “we Clorox everything” and have gotten used to more sterile environments.

“Let [children] get dirty and play in the dirt. Allergies are pretty complicated, but a lot of it is environmental and what you are exposed to or not exposed to,” Tanzillo said. “The more you expose yourself, the more desensitization you will have.”