Dr. Leonard explains how allergies happen: your body mistakes a harmless substance for a threat and releases histamine. Kids of parents with seasonal allergies have a 40-50% chance of getting them too. He covers common triggers like pollen and dust mites, why allergies feel like colds, and medications that manage symptoms until the season ends.
Allergies is a generic term that encompasses a lot of symptoms. Allergies are essentially caused by a substance that someone comes in contact with, whether it is either inhaled or ingested or through touch, which causes your body to attack this foreign substance. And therefore, it kind of releases histamine. Some of the allergens are animal dander, pollen, certainly this time of the year, molds, and dust mites. If you have a parent that has allergies, seasonal allergies for instance, there's a 40 to 50% chance that their children might have it. So the difference between colds and allergies, very difficult to tell. You have runny nose, cough, congestion, itchy, watery eyes. you'll see that with a cold or an allergy. A great way that I think really helps patients and parents understand what exactly is allergies, why are you so miserable, and why are these medicines not helping is think of— get a vacuum cleaner bag full of dust and stick your head in it. Your body is automatically going to have these symptoms that come up, which are like flushing out symptoms, because your body releases the histamine. The dust hasn't gone anywhere. It's still there, and your head's still in the vacuum cleaner bag full of dust. And we suggest all of these medications. There's several medications— nasal steroid, oral antihistamine, antihistamine eye drops. And if you have asthma, inhaled steroids and bronchodilators. You're on all these medicines, but yet you still have these symptoms. What these medicines will do is help you get through the season until the season gets better, until your head comes out of the vacuum cleaner bag.
