The past two weeks, I’ve been suffering from a fairly bad bout of allergies: stuffed nose, dripping, power sneezing, the whole bit. During this time, my girlfriend asks me, during particularly bad attacks, “What’s bringing it on?” When I tell her I don’t know, she responds almost as if I told her I can’t smell the difference between a fart and flower. Without actually being around a know allergen – for instance, having a cat crawl all over me – I can’t tell if a sneeze is brought about by pollen or by something else.
So, for most people with allergies: without actually knowing that you’ve been exposed to a known allergen, for instance visiting a friend that has cats, can you tell the specific allergen that is causing an allergic response? Can you tell the difference between ryegrass pollen-induced sinus congestion and ragweed-induced sinus congestion, or airborne dust sneezes versus mold spore sneezes? Am I odd in having allergy attacks and not knowing what’s causing them at the moment?
No. Unless it’s something very specific like you walk outside and your car is yellow with pollen and you snort of few rails of it and your throat closes up, I really don’t think you can tell. I think I’ve narrowed mine down to either Bermunda grass or dust but at the end of the day those are really just guesses.
I know of one specifically, and it took me a couple years to figure out that I was allergic to my favorite flower (asian lillies). I love to keep fresh flowers in my house, and when they are in season I’d grab some at the store. I realized after awhile that my allergy attacks were correlated to when I had those specific flowers in the house. I confirmed it when I started sneezing my head off at my mother’s house before I knew she had some, too.
More generally, I have narrowed down my allergies by paying attention to pollen, ragweed, and mold spore levels in my area. I’ve noticed that when I have bad allergy problems it’s usually when the ragweed or grass pollen is high. Tree pollen doesn’t seem to bother me.
I would suspect no as well. I have a few environmental allergies and unless it’s obvious like your examples (move an item only to disturb a lot of dust built up, start wheezing), I wouldn’t be sure what caused the sniffling and might even mistake it for some other respiratory problem like a developing cold. My husband thought this spring that he had some kind of spring cold bothering him, until I suspected from his complaints that he’d developed an allergy (probably some kind of pollen) in adulthood. I had him take an antihistamine - just that, no decongestants or anything - and his symptoms completely disappeared in a very short time period.
I can usually figure it out from environmental cues.
Am I in an unfamiliar but apparently clean house? - probably a cat. My cat allergy is the most severe, so I can quite reliably detect the presence of a cat in this manner.
Is it spring or fall? - probably pollen.
Am I in a not-so-clean house (or any basement), and/or is someone moving things around that haven’t been moved in a while? - probably dust or mold.
I went to an allergist, but I’m allergic to almost all tree/grass pollen so it doesn’t make a difference which one I am experiencing at any given time. Other people may have a different experience (e.g. if they’re only allergic to ragweed, then once they start sneezing they’ll know it’s ragweed).
No matter what it is, it’s unlikely that I can do anything about it, so it doesn’t really make a difference. It’s not like I have maple tree pollen allergy antidote that I can only use if I pinpoint the allergen as maple tree pollen.
I can’t, so I gave up and just take Zyrtec regularly. I used to have pet allergies pretty bad but I don’t anymore. Maybe I should go to the doctor and get a scratch test.
I can’t. I’ve been tested and know what I’m allergic to, but the symptoms are the same regardless of which allergen. The slight exception might be dust mites, since they came up as the strongest allergen. If my allergy symptoms come on really badly and suddenly indoors, that’s what I’d suspect.
The inhaled allergy symptoms are your body’s mast cells releasing histamine, which is going to feel the same no matter what is making them release it.
If it’s been bad in the past two weeks, you might want to consider whether there is some allergen in your heating system.
That’s the thing: my girlfriend thinks I should be able to figure out what’s causing a specific attack with no other environmental cues; e.g. visible duststorms, visiting a cat lady’s house, yellow pollen coating every surface, and so on. Yes, I’ve been tested and I know what I’m allergic to, but she thinks that, in the absence of all cues, I should still be able to tell what is causing a reaction. I love her, but it drives me nuts when she asks “What’s causing you to sneeze?”, and she is bewildered because I can’t name the specific allergen I’m reacting to.
Not without specific scratch tests. Sometimes the time of year can help - right now, there’s nothing in terms of pollen showing up on test plates around Northern Illinois/Southern Wisconsin, but we have TONS of fallen leaves in wet piles on the ground. I suspect that my current allergies are therefore connected to leaf mold. It’s a very common fall allergy and my symptoms are at their worst 12-48 hours after spending time outdoors, so I don’t think it’s an indoor allergen, but it’s still just an educated guess.
And, on that note, I simply cannot believe how wonderful Claritin is! I wish I had broken down and tried it weeks ago.
Beat me to it! I wondered for years why I got bad allergies at this time of year, finally asked my doc and he told me about the mold that grows on oak leaves, maple leaves, hickory all of the hardwoods. Speaking of which I need a benedryl.
I can’t automatically tell, but I’d say that in the majority of situations where I’m having a reaction to an allergen, it’s usually strong enough to notice. Cats, smoke, dust, these all are usually obvious enough to pin point it.
If I travel to another state and my nose gets stuffed, it’s probably due to whatever difference in local flora, but I can’t identify it further than that. And occasionally I can’t tell the difference between actual allergies and a head cold.
For those of us wondering if it’s a cold or if it’s allergies, the biggest clue is usually the color and texture of the snot. Allergy mucus tends to be thin, clear and watery. Cold mucus tends to be thicker and white, yellow or green.
With the exception of basil, which gives me hives from touching anything with even the slightest trace of it on it (like, for example, if I use touch the mouse being used by someone who has eaten pizza within the last several hours without washing their hands), I usually have no clue what particular plant is causing me angst. I know it is mold, plants, or trees, but which ones at any given moment? Forget it.
In fact, as of this year, I have a new outdoor allergy symptom, and I can’t even imagine what could be causing it. Since April I’ve been outdoors on around ten different occasions and have had my eyes start to burn and stream tears; this most recently happened less than two weeks ago, so I suspect tree rather than flower given few flowers if any in northern new england are in bloom six months solid. Until this year, it never happened to me. Before now my allergy symptoms have all been sinus related.
I can’t tell anything about the allergen from my allergic feelings and would be surprised if anybody could. No idea why the OP’s girlfriend would think otherwise.
Of course there are often clues that are distinct from the allergic reaction per se. Moreover, I think there is arguably sometimes a gray area here. For example, I used to have a cat allergy and would sometimes have simultaneous allergic feelings and tickles from cat hair in my nose. For another example, there are perfumes that set me off, and smelling them and feeling irritated can be hard to separate (though whether the irritation is literally an allergy is debatable too). But I think the fact that sometimes it is hard to tell the difference is not proof that one has an allergic sense of distinction between sources.
I couldn’t tell what I was allergic to (I just suspected strongly it was something). I did the official tests, and I’m allergic to grasses and trees (but not cats and dogs). I thought I was allergic to cats; I had no idea I was allergic to trees. Your girlfriend is the clueless one here, I’m afraid.
I second getting yourself tested properly; finding out I was allergic to airborne stuff only, I just use a nasal spray as needed instead of a pill antihistamine, since I react strongly to pill antihistamines (non-drowsy? I could use them as sleeping pills.)
I’m allergic to dogs, cats and horses, and may be allergic to several other furry things (I’m pretty sure I’ve reacted to both rabbits and ferrets).
I can tell if I’m having a horse reaction because it’s about twice as intense as cat/dog reactions; I start wheezing if I’m around a cat or most dogs for too long, but I have difficulty breathing if I’m around horses. I very nearly died the last time I went to the circus (although I was about seven at the time).