Spring and summer mean pollen and mold counts start to rise pretty seriously and stay high. Your pollen and mold counts will depend on where you live, what grows there, and how the weather is. Rain tends to wash pollen down out of the air as does humidity, while dry and windy weather makes it blow around all over the place.

There are things you can do that are low tech or home remedies when environmental, mold, or other plant allergies bother you. It helps if you know what you are allergic to, because that will tell you the times of year that will be most difficult for you. There are some general rules that will help you decrease your discomfort.

Pollen counts tend to be highest in the morning and evening, so if you can stay indoors then or wait to open windows until later at night, you can keep some of the pollen out of your house. If you have a whole-house furnace or central air conditioning, you can buy electrostatic filters or pleated filters. They are a little more expensive but they pull more particulates out of the air. Then if you leave the fan switch on, even if you are not running heat or air conditioning, it circulates the house air through the filters more often, pulling even more junk out of the air.

If you have been outside, when you get home, change your clothes and even shower if you are having symptoms. This will remove mold spores and pollens from your hair, skin, and clothing. Irritated eyes can be rinsed out with plain sterile saline like that used by wearers of contact lenses. You can also use a boric acid eye wash solution. This can be purchased or even made at home with medicinal boric acid powder and boiled water. Boric acid solution is very soothing to irritated eyes, especially if you have a little eyecup to help fully flush them out.

If you have pets that go outdoors, don’t forget they can also carry mold spores and pollens into the house on their coats. Rinsing or bathing pets off more often during your worst allergy season will also help keep irritants from circulating in your house.

There are many medications available for allergy treatment and prevention, but if you do not have severe allergies low tech or home remedies may be enough to keep symptoms manageable. If your allergies are severe, these interventions in addition to medications will be helpful for you as well. The World Allergy Organization has a listing of websites with pollen counts for most countries.

Sources:

Discovery Health Pollen Count and Allergies

World Allergy Organization