Letter from Boston
Allergy Season Hits
By MASAKO YAMADA
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アレルギーシーズンの到来
雅子さんの目下の悩みは、花粉症です。4月中寒い日が続いたボストンにもようやく春が訪れましたが、それを喜ぶのもつかの間、さっそく雅子さんの鼻は反応し始めました。今年は花粉の量が特に多いらしく、風邪に似た症状のほかに、目が赤くなり、湿疹が出るなどして、憂うつな日々が続いています。
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We've had an unnaturally late spring in Boston this year. It was cold and damp for
most of April, and we even had snow at the end of the month. There is the old saying,
"April showers bring May flowers," but hearing it has not made us feel much
better.
Now May is here, and the weather has gotten warm enough for us to shed our winter
sweaters. Finally, the flowers and trees have started to bud (thanks to the April showers, no doubt).
However, in addition to revealing beautiful signs of life, the plants have also
been releasing that pesky enemy of allergy sufferers: pollen. The pollen level
seems especially high this year. It is almost as if the plants had carefully stored
their pollen reserves during the cold months, and they have now been given a chance to
explode. All I can say is that my nose knows that spring has arrived.
I went to a classical music concert tonight and noticed that many of the people in the
audience were sniffling. It's common for people to cough or sneeze and shuffle papers in between movements at a concert, but some people were sniffling even while
the music was playing.
Unfortunately, I was one of them. I had to keep a tissue within close reach at all
times. I knew that all of the snifflers did not have colds but were rather reacting to
the pollen outside.
My companion noticed early in the evening that I was sniffling and he asked whether
the trees had been getting to me. I was surprised that he didn't ask me whether I had
a cold, but then he said that the pollen was affecting him as well.
He lives in the city but he told me that he'd gone to visit his family in the suburbs
and even that short trip had exposed him to enough pollen to make him feel sick.
I've been feeling miserable for the past few days, even though I don't live in a
particularly tree-heavy neighborhood. Although I'd trade in my symptoms for good
health any day, the good thing about having pollen allergies is that there are lots of
sympathetic people with whom to commiserate.
I casually mentioned my symptoms to a friend who had been visiting our apartment, and
he pulled out a couple of pills from his wallet and gave them to me. He said that
after trying different kinds of med
icines, he'd finally found one that seemed to work and didn't make him drowsy.
The medicine he gave me was a herbal medicine, so just one dose didn't really
make me feel better, but I was happy that he offered his advice. I've heard from another
source that certain prescription medicines also work well.
Given the number of advertisements I see for prescription allergy medicines, I
suppose that the market is very hot. The medicines seem to be as popular as
antidepressants and Viagra.
Sometimes the TV news broadcasts even give an "allergy index" to tell allergy
sufferers how the weather will affect them that day (I think this index combines pollen
count, humidity and wind conditions).
The question is why so many people are allergic to things. I have heard that
allergies can fade in and out of one's life and that they can be activated by a
combin
ation of various environmental stimuli.
I don't know the details of what's going on in my case but I do know that my
allergies are in the active phase right now. I never used to get sick, but not only do
I have pollen allergies that cause coldlike symptoms and itchy, red eyes, I also have
certain allergic reactions that cause my skin to break out in a rash.
I've taken antihistamines to try to relieve the symptoms, but, unfortunately, they
make me feel very sleepy.
Pollen doesn't get into my eyes when my eyes are closed, so I tend to feel better
after a nap, but this is obviously not an ideal solution when I have work to do. I
wish I could just fall asleep at night and wake up without any discomfort, but the
best I can do is distract myself until the trees stop mating.
It's a small price to pay for having plant life on the Earth.
Shukan ST: May 19, 2000
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