Allergic rhinitis, commonly referred to as hay fever, occurs when your immune system overreacts to allergens in the air. It causes inflammation in the nose, resulting in a runny nose, sneezing, along with red, itchy, watery and swollen eyes.
Hay fever is thought to affects as many as a third of people in the UK at some point each year. Symptoms often start within minutes following exposure to the allergen and are disruptive to productivity and sleep.
Symptoms of hay fever can often resemble those of the common cold, but commonly last more than two weeks and typically do not include a fever.
When you have hay fever, your immune system identifies a harmless airborne substance as harmful. Your immune system then produces antibodies to this harmless substance. The next time you come in contact with the substance, these antibodies signal your immune system to release chemicals such as histamine into your bloodstream, which cause a reaction that leads to the signs and symptoms of hay fever.
It is quite common that people with hay fever also have asthma, allergic conjunctivitis, or atopic dermatitis.
Diagnosis can be made easily with a skin prick test or specific blood test which utilises allergen-specific IgE antibodies for accurate results.
Symptoms of hay fever can be relieved through the use of nasal steroids and antihistamines which suppress the immune response, but these are costly in the long term and may not relieve symptoms entirely. To reduce the cost of ongoing prescriptions, immunotherapy is often effective and allergens may be given as injections or tablets. Provided the course is completed, immunotherapy treatment typically lasts three to five years.