After the Chicago area’s most active pollen seasons in years, the worst of it seems to have passed thanks in part to the recent cold, damp weather.
It would mean relief for allergy sufferers, more of whom have been seeking treatment this spring, allergy experts say.
Barbara Hollek, an employee at Fruitful Yield in Berwyn, said the grocery and natural healing store gets a regular stream of customers seeking help for allergy symptoms.
“And the thing is, that’s not something that happens right now. It’s constant,” Hollek said.
She said the Food and Drug Administration prevents employees at places like Fruitful Yield from making claims about certain products. They can, however, make product recommendations.
“They don’t ask a lot of questions, they really don’t know a lot of things to ask. They just tell you what’s wrong,” she said of customers.
She said with the warmer weather, she has noticed a slight uptick in requests for allergy relief.
“Because people are allergic to things all year-round. Because it’s not only outdoor things people are allergic to,” she said.
Pollen and the problems associated with it are common this time of year as trees bloom after the winter thaw. But a series of weather effects made this season tougher to handle.
A cold, snowy winter will delay the start of pollen season, which typically starts in the Chicago area in March.
“We were definitely snowier than normal,” said Amy Seeley, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Romeoville. “(The temperature) was below normal — about a half-degree below normal.”
That delayed the start of Chicago’s pollen season about 30 days, said Gerry Kress, vice president of SDI Health, which owns and runs the allergy forecasting website pollen.com.
When a warm spell struck toward the end of April, everything sprung to life. Trees that would have pollinated at different points in the spring were instead getting to work at the same time.
“All the trees pollinated at the same time, and you had an explosion of pollen which peaked the week of April 25,” Kress said. “You had this explosion. Now it’s starting to go down.”
SDI Health issues a weekly number indicating how many allergy-prone people are likely to be suffering. It is based on a 1-12 scale, with 12 meaning 100 percent of allergy-prone people are affected.
“This week’s index — out of 12 — (is) 10.1,” Kress said May 13. “Last year, 9.5. So you’re ahead of last year in the same week.”
Kress declined to exactly say how SDI Health calculates the index. The pharmacy industry relies on it, and it is a company secret, he said.
But with about a third of the Chicago area prone to allergies, last week’s 10.1 translates to more than 25 percent of the population reacting to the pollen.
For much of this spring, the numbers have been higher than last year, and Kress said it was probably the worst pollen season in at least five years.
“Instead of being normal — you would peak at maybe 9 — this time you moved up to 10,” he said. “In four weeks, April was up about 7 percent over April a year ago.”
While pollen numbers are still high compared to last year, the impact lessens with each rainfall.
Dr. Leonard Spishakoff of the Total Care Medical group on Cermak Road said he has noticed an increase in patients complaining about allergies this season. He said that asthma sufferers’ symptoms worsen when pollen levels are particularly strong.
Patients are mostly complaining of symptoms related to conjunctivitis, which is a reddening of the eyes and other allergy related symptoms, like “tearing of the eyes, running nose, coughing, itching on the skin,” Spishakoff said.
“It’s also been a bad allergy season because of the rain,” he said.
He said it is true that residents in more urban areas like Berwyn or Cicero will not suffer from allergies related to pollen as much as people living in more rural areas. However, people living in urban areas are more often exposed to cockroaches and mice — which can contribute to asthma, he said.
Staff reporter Nick Vogel contributed to this report.
