I love gardening, I blog about it all the time, but there is a dark side to gardening for me. I suffer from seasonal allergies, particularly in November and March. Today the pollen count, even with rain, will be 648 p/m(3), that's parts per cubic meter, high, but not as high as it's going to get here. Last year we had days where the pollen count was over 4,000 parts per cubic meter. After a day in the garden I'm coughing and sneezing because of allergic rhinitus and my eyes are itching because even better, I have allergic conjuctivitus. I do use prescription eye drops for the conjuctivitus, but I try to avoid taking anything for the allergic rhinitus because the 2 things my Doctor will let me take (I have high blood pressure) are Benedryl and Allegra. Benedryl makes me spacey and mean-tempered and Allegra dries me out so badly that I usually end up with laryngitus because of dried out vocal chords and I run around writing notes on napkins to communicate.
There are ways to help your allergies, take shots----not going to happen---, stay indoors, particularly in the morning when the pollen is the worse, close your windows, take a vacation when the pollen is the worst (we are, but we're going to Florida and I suspect the pollen won't be any better there) and stay out of you garden. All of these things are unlikely to happen.
Right now it's pine tree pollen that's the worst and we have all kinds of pine trees in our yard. I can't avoid them, not going to stay inside and I'm not taking medication, so I'll sniffle my way through March and hope that the pollen in April won't be one I react to.
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