ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — From Florida to Texas to Colorado, this is shaping up to be a monster of an allergy season. Everything, it seems, is covered in a fine yellow dust that irritates our lives. Specialists say it is the worst they have seen in years.
“We’re just overwhelmed with patients right now,’’ said Dr. Mona Mangat, an allergy specialist in St. Petersburg, Fla. “We’re double- and triple-booked with new patients, trying to work people in because we know how much people are suffering.’’
And they are suffering a lot. Take 5-year-old Sam Wilson of St. Petersburg. His mother gives him Claritin in the morning, Nasonex and Benadryl at night, and he receives four allergy shots every week. The sidewalks of his hometown are covered in what look like piles of dried, brown worms, which are actually mounds of oak tree pollen.
His mother, Joanna Wilson, 34, said that when the pollen is at its worst, Sam’s eyes water and itch, he can’t breathe through his nose, and his throat burns.
Oak trees are the culprit in many places in the Southeast. The trees produce 3,000 to 6,000 pollen particles per cubic meter. It only takes 10 particles to trigger an allergic reaction.
This year is especially bad in the Southeast, weather specialists say, probably because of winter’s unseasonably cold weather.
“That may have helped delay some of the plants from blooming as early as they may have wanted to,’’ said John Feerick, senior meteorologist at AccuWeather.
High winds in some areas also spread the misery.
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