For a couple of years now, every spring and early summer I end up with sneezing and watery eyes. I didn't have this problem before. Could it be linked to the climate changes I see around me? I read that trees are blooming earlier than usual.
It's not necessarily tied to climate change, even though the pollen season has actually shifted.
What happens is that allergies can show up even years later - maybe your immune system only started reacting to certain pollens recently, and factors like stress or repeated exposure over time can trigger it.
When I got back into cycle touring more often a couple years ago, I noticed I was spending hours outdoors during spring and boom - crazy allergies.
The obvious tip is to try antihistamines before the critical season, but honestly, a chat with your doctor to figure out which pollen you're reacting to could really help.
Allergies can develop even after years of not having them, so maybe it's not that the climate has changed so much to trigger them - it's more likely that your body has started reacting to pollen for other reasons. Repeated exposure over time, stress, changes in your immune system, even moving to an area with more allergenic trees... all of that plays a role.
That said, yes, trees actually do flower earlier than they did a few decades ago, and pollen seasons are longer in many places. But what we experience firsthand (like the fact that sneezing was worse this year than last year) depends on so many variables: local weather conditions of that particular spring, humidity, temperatures. Maybe it's a combination - your body became sensitive, and at the same time the environmental situation got bad for you too. Have you tried monitoring whether your symptoms are worse in certain weeks or after windy days?
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