Iowans who suffer from allergies aren’t getting any breaks this year. Doctor Jill Poole, an allergist in Omaha-Council Bluffs, says those who are sensitive to pollen have been suffering for months already and it won’t be coming to an end anytime soon. “One of the big problems is, the tree pollen season started back in January and there is still some tree pollen in the air,” Dr. Poole says. “The tree pollen season was super-long and now we’re hit with the grass pollen season and this started a little earlier this year than it did last year.”

Grass pollen started giving Iowans red eyes, runny noses and sneezing fits in the past two weeks or so and the season will likely stick around through the end of June. Poole says several over-the-counter antihistamines offer significant relief of the symptoms.
“What’s really great this year is that the intranasal steroid sprays are over-the-counter now,” Poole says. “They go by names like Nasacort and Flonase and those can be really helpful.” There is a steroid injection that offers some allergy sufferers relief, but Poole says she doesn’t typically recommend it as there are long-term side effects.

“I recommend more prescription approaches like allergy desensitization shots which are a lot of shots over a period of time,” she says. Poole is an allergist at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

(Radio Iowa)