Transcription

Eighteen-year-old Kathryn Haenni remembers struggling with allergies since she was young. As a child, Kathryn experienced severe allergic reactions.

Kathryn Haenni: “When I was younger, I could never play outdoor soccer in the spring because had I played soccer with my friends on the team I would, you know, probably be crying midway through because my eyes would be so puffy.”

Kathryn says she experienced her first allergy testing around six years old. Her diagnosis is an allergy to pollen, dust, and other environmental irritants.

Kathryn Haenni: “To be 6-years-old and experience just like, I mean they’re fairly like painful pricks just up and down your back, you know, couple hundred times was definitely a painful experience and borderline traumatic. Having severe symptoms of seasonal allergies is something that dictates your choices. Because the symptoms are so severe, in order to avoid those symptoms, you have to make choices that potentially put you at a disadvantage um, you know, physically or socially or emotionally.”

Pediatric allergist and immunologist Doctor David Peden says weather patterns and our changing climate affect allergies like Kathryn’s.

Dr. Peden: “All of these basically are impacted by climate, you know, by weather and, you know, patterns of weather which we would call climate. So, the warmer the weather is, and in areas where climate change results in more airborne water versus less. And that’s going to vary depending on your region. I think climate change is important because it causes both droughts and floods as it were, so it depends on where you are. Weather and atmospheric conditions and pollution results in, you know, the pollution itself modifies a person’s response to what you’re allergic to.”

Climate change impacts our weather by inducing higher temperatures, increased precipitation, and poor air quality. These effects from climate change may increase the exposure to environmental allergens. Peden uses pollen as an example of the weather’s impact.

Dr Peden: “I think the warmer the Earth is and the longer the pollination seasons are and so if you look at this from the perspective of how do, what do trees, what environmental conditions promote tree pollination: warmer, wet weather in a very general sense is probably beneficial to them, uh, with regards to inducing pollination. The longer the pollen season is, the warmer it is and the wetter the winter is before then: the bigger the bloom of, or the burst of pollen is that there’s going to be.”

Peden says there is a caveat to the increased precipitation when it comes to rain.

Dr. Peden: “Episodic rainstorms can actually be helpful, you know, for a person who has got a lot, uh, significant outdoor allergies.”

The rain washes away the yellow and green pollen that you see on cars and sidewalks. Kathryn says she feels a sense of relief after a rainstorm in the peak pollen season.

Kathryn Haenni: “But my allergies are significantly better after it rains, um. I think that’s largely in part just because literally it washes away allergens in the air. And, I guess that being said if it hasn’t rained in a while and there’s kind of like a buildup of particulate matter, um, that definitely is going to increase my symptoms of allergies just because just there’s more that has accumulated.”

Taking allergy medicine like Claritin or other antihistamines helps to reduce allergy symptoms. Peden says some people may resort to allergy shots to alleviate symptoms in the long term. For people like Kathryn, there’s more to the weather than what meets the eye.

Kathryn Haenni: “That subsequently affects you socially because if you’re not as interested in playing outside with your friends when you’re younger or being active when you’re older with outdoor sports and things like that, um, that definitely affected my quality of life due to the choices that I made to avoid having a flare up in my symptoms.”

That goes to say climate change may be impacting our weather, and us, more than we realize. I’m Meg Hardesty in Chapel Hill.