Hay fever: what is blooming right now?

The most important things in brief

• Spring in particular is not a happy time for allergy sufferers.
• Those who suffer from hay fever do not like to go outside in certain phases of spring, depending on the pollen count.
• Anyone who is allergic to hazel or ash, birch or beech and grasses or ragweed often has problems for more than half a year.
• In order to limit the suffering, it is best to find out about the intensity of the pollen count from day to day.

Yes, sometimes a slight itching in the eyes or the urge to sneeze can be enough to make a nice situation uncomfortable when you are out and about. But those who only have mild hay fever including the symptoms often have no idea what severe allergy sufferers have to go through - some of them even from January to September.

Certain combinations are particularly unfavorable

How much time each year allergy sufferers suffer from hay fever depends on two factors. Firstly, to which pollen they actually develop allergic reactions. And on the other hand, when this pollen swirls through the air. Anyone who is allergic to birch and poplar at the same time can have serious problems from the end of February to the beginning of May, both trees bloom almost at the same time and trigger a double reaction.

For the rest of the year, there is a pleasant rest if there are no other allergies. But there are quite a few people who have exactly this problem. They are often allergic to a whole range of pollen - and if the flight time of this pollen is distributed over almost the entire year, then hay fever symptoms also occur for most of the year.

Excursion: these are the typical symptoms

Hay fever manifests itself in many different ways in allergy sufferers. While some only complain of a slightly itchy nose or a runny, sometimes blocked nose, others have to sneeze very often. A sore throat and an overall swollen airway and sinuses are not uncommon.

Some of those affected also complain of fever when the pollen load is very high and the organism tries to defend itself as best it can. In children in particular, fever is not the order of the day, but it can happen from time to time. Discomfort in the eyes is a very unpleasant symptom for allergy sufferers, which also occurs quite frequently. The eyelids often swell, while the reddened eyes itch or even hurt.

The pollen in the annual calendar

The absolute early bloomers include hazel and alder, which in Switzerland sometimes send their pollen through the air right at the beginning of the year. At the end of February, willow, ash and poplar start flowering, followed by birch, hornbeam and hop beech. Incidentally, the alder is particularly perfidious: it blooms until around the beginning to mid-April, only to then produce pollen again for a few weeks at the end of May and in June.

Plane, beech, oak, dock, plantain and many grasses usually start flowering in April, with the grasses in particular blooming into late summer. Chestnuts are late and have a shorter flowering period at the end of May, followed by corn, mugwort, ragweed and goldenrod in mid and late July.