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What the Traveler with Allergies Should Know

By Susan Dunn

Excited about celebrating her sister’s graduation from law school, Elizabeth arrived in Falls Church, VA at the peak of their allergy season. That plus the jet lag sent her reeling for a couple of days. She made it to the graduation, but it wasn’t the joyous time she'd anticipated. They also had to spend hours getting a doctor’s appointment and picking up a prescription for a medication she had at home, and might have been taking beforehand to prevent a full-blown attack.

Millions of people worldwide suffer from allergies, 50 million in the US alone. An allergy is “a heightened sensitivity to a foreign substance (called an allergen) which causes the body’s defense system (the immune system) to overreact when defending itself.”

Allergic conditions include:

Hay fever and allergic asthma. Pollen from grasses, ragweed and trees, mold and dust can all cause respiratory and nasal problems.
Eczema. Cement dust is particularly likely to cause this.
Urticaria (itchy hives). Most of us get this from nettles. You can also get this from strawberries, seafood, cheese; it depends. They can also cause fatigue; after all the body is working overtime at something that’s everywhere.

If you travel for pleasure or business, and have allergies, you need to be prepared.

If you’re traveling within the US, let’s say you’re heading for Louisville, KY or Austin, TX, did you know they are numbers one and two on the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA)’s list of Allergy Capitals™? Also ranking in the top ten are St. Louis, Atlanta, Charlotte, Hartford-New Haven, Nashville, Raleigh-Durham-Fayetteville, Harrisburg-Lancaster-York, and Grand Rapids-Kalamazoo.

However, included among the top 50 are some of the business and tourism cities you’d be most likely to visit - Orlando, New York city, New Orleans, Chicago, Washington, DC, Denver, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

What can you do?

"Living in or traveling to an Allergy Capital™ should be a reminder to allergy sufferers to control allergy symptoms by planning ahead," says Derek Johnson, MD, an allergist at Temple University Medical Center and a medical advisor to AAFA. "Having a personal Allergy Action Plan can help allergy sufferers prevent symptoms from flaring up and understand how to treat symptoms when necessary."

Check with your personal healthcare professional so you have a plan. Personally, you can visit www.pollen.com to see what the pollen count is in that location. It isn't the pollen from the flowers that tends to bother allergy sufferers; it's the grass and tree pollen and low-growing green things.

Ragweed pollen is probably the largest single seasonal allergen in North America. According to Pollen.com, one square mile of ragweed plants could release 16 tons of pollen in one season.

Here, you can sign up to be alerted by email in the morning when conditions in your town exceed the trigger point that causes most allergy suffered to have symptoms.

The American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology also features a pollen and mold count for the US and Canada.

TRAVEL ABROAD

The European pollen calendar presents data from 200 pollen stations all over Europe. Tree data includes alder, hazel, birch, ash, olive, plane and cypress. Weed data comes from observations of ragweed, mugwort, pellitory, and nettles. According to the site, “grass pollen is the most important allergen in Europe. As cross-reactivity is extremely high amongst nearly all grasses, for the grass-pollen sensitive patient it makes no difference which grass pollen she or he inhales.”

And, they add, “only the pollen of cultivated rye has a higher allergencity than the pollen of wild grasses.”

Here you will find pollen calendars for North America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia, along with important information.

For example, Japanese cedar pollen, which is one of the most potent known and causes severe symptoms is present from approximately the end of January until the beginning of April on the north island, and mid-April through early May on the south island. Interestingly, ragweed pollens are present in Japan (around August), but not as influential as in North America.

Food allergies are not related to location and can cause serious reactions. When Nick was on a job interview, the corporation took him out for a lobster dinner. He sat down to a feast of lobster and beer and ended up in the emergency room in what is called anaphylactic shock.

Betty was visiting her grandchildren and enjoying some queso dip with jalapeno peppers and ended up in the ER as well. Maria had this happen on a vacation to Hawaii when she tasted her first mango.

For many of us allergies "just" mean sneezing, sniffling, burning eyes and feeling low, but if you have "anaphylactic shock," the most extreme reaction, you can be in real trouble. And what’s most alarming is that it can seem to come out of the blue. It can come from a food you’ve never eaten, or you can have the reaction to something that’s never given you trouble before.

Nick had had beer and lobster (what he discovered to be the offending combination) many times before. What had happened is that on those occasions the sensitivity was “building up.” In people who form this sensitivity, the full-fledged reaction occurs one day “out of the blue.” In Maria’s case, she’d never had a mango before, and so had no way of knowing she was severely allergic to the fruit.

The symptoms are, difficulty breathing, itchiness, swelling of the lips and throat, and drop in blood pressure, and finally collapse. It can be fatal. They can start immediately, or up to some hours following. If you've ever suffered anaphylactic shock, you’ve probably been instructed by your physician to carry injectable adrenaline with you and to keep some at home as well. In Betty’s case, her husband happened to have some out in the truck as part of his snakebite kit and was able to administer it to her, recognizing the symptoms.

If these symptoms occur, seek medical attention immediately. Some people experience this to bee stings.

Put together the location of your travel plus food and you have another potential source of trouble. If you’re sensitive to ragweed, for instance, when it’s pollinating you should avoid egg, milk, bananas and lettuce. These foods cross-react and should be completely eliminated during the times these things are pollinating.

If you’re allergic to dust, you should avoid seafood, nuts and peanut butter, and if you’re allergic to molds and fungus, you should avoid milk products, vinegars, alcoholic beverages, mushrooms, yeast and sugar. (Part of the information is provided by the American Academy of Otolaryngology.)

If you have allergies, keep these things in mind when you’re preparing for a trip to another town or country so you can have the best possible trip. Remember to label any medications you take with you, and keep them with you, in pocket, purse or carryon luggage. And, of course, check with your personal healthcare professional for your unique situation.