You’re Not Imagining It: Allergy Season Is Getting Worse

If you feel like seasonal allergies are more miserable than ever before, you're not wrong. This year is expected to be the worst on record.

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If you've been sneezing, coughing, and suffering through itchy eyes - you aren't alone. Scientific American estimates about one in four Americans suffer from seasonal allergies - and that number is expected to keep on rising.

Climate change - whether you believe in it or not - is influencing how allergy season hits and the warmer the globe is, the stronger and longer seasonal allergies become.

Check out this TikTok by allergist Dr. Rubin, who broke down why allergies are worse than ever before.

@rubin_allergy @rodiacomedy Why are my allergies the worst they have ever been? Why are allergies so bad this year? #allergies #tiktokdoc #learnontiktok @rodiacomedy ♬ original sound - Dr. Rubin, MD

With warmer-than-average temperatures lasting later into the year, it's cutting into frost season - which typically tells plants to stop growing and go into hibernation for the winter.

So, plants will continue to grow and produce more blossoms because the risk of frost damage isn't in the picture - which, in turn, attracts more bees and other pollinators to do their work. And, unfortunately, that is what causes people with seasonal allergies to suffer for much longer.

Unfortunately, the increased demand is causing allergy medicine prices to skyrocket.

Read More: Why Is Allergy Medicine Going up in Price All of a Sudden?

It's also believed that climate change is causing more carbon dioxide to go into the atmosphere, which causes the pollen count to climb even higher. Pollen-producing plants react positively to carbon dioxide since it lets them burn less energy to photosynthesize.

The energy not spent on photosynthesis is redirected to - you guessed it - producing pollen.

This could mean people who weren't affected by seasonal allergies before to develop them due to the high concentration of pollen in the air. Scientific American says pollen concentrations jumped by 21 percent in North America between 1990 and 2019.

Allergies are triggered by an immune response, and the body views pollen as an threat and will fight it. The body's poor reaction to pollen is what causes some people to suffer from seasonal allergies.

Said Scientific American:

Pollen is difficult to acclimate to because it’s seasonal rather than consistently present in the environment. In addition, the tiny, airborne pollen grains that cause allergies can easily make their way past the nose and deeper into the respiratory tract. In general, however, allergies develop because the immune system is reactive when it first meets an allergen; the conditions don’t arise from any specific characteristic of the pollen itself.

And that is why more and more people claim they are coming down with seasonal allergies.

So if you're among the lucky few who don't develop sniffles, sneezes, or itchy eyes in the spring - that could end in the next few years.