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You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/24/hay-fever-sufferers-rising-number
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| Version 1 | Version 2 |
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| Sorry for doubting you hay fever sufferers – now I know your pain | Sorry for doubting you hay fever sufferers – now I know your pain |
| (about 2 hours later) | |
| Wearing my sunglasses indoors, struggling to tear into some new drugs, my daughter looks alarmed. "Mum, what are you doing? You look like a crackhead." I know I look stupid; I feel even more stupid. Hay fever does that. | Wearing my sunglasses indoors, struggling to tear into some new drugs, my daughter looks alarmed. "Mum, what are you doing? You look like a crackhead." I know I look stupid; I feel even more stupid. Hay fever does that. |
| Apart from turning your body into a snot factory, you feel perpetually fogged up; not really there at all. It's a miserable thing. Far from wanting to skip around in your newest summer gear, gaily enjoying the weather with a picnic you have spent days preparing, hay fever means you should stay indoors. And stick Vaseline up your nose. | Apart from turning your body into a snot factory, you feel perpetually fogged up; not really there at all. It's a miserable thing. Far from wanting to skip around in your newest summer gear, gaily enjoying the weather with a picnic you have spent days preparing, hay fever means you should stay indoors. And stick Vaseline up your nose. |
| Right now it's bad, and predicted to get worse. We are in the midst of a "particularly severe pollen season [which] could cause widespread suffering into the middle of next month" . The NHS will spend at least £50m on medications and Allergy UK says we will spend up to £900m on allergy-related illnesses. I feel I can account for most of that: eye drops, nasal sprays, various pills that may make you incapable of driving or operating heavy machinery – skills that I already possess! | Right now it's bad, and predicted to get worse. We are in the midst of a "particularly severe pollen season [which] could cause widespread suffering into the middle of next month" . The NHS will spend at least £50m on medications and Allergy UK says we will spend up to £900m on allergy-related illnesses. I feel I can account for most of that: eye drops, nasal sprays, various pills that may make you incapable of driving or operating heavy machinery – skills that I already possess! |
| Various antihistamines will make you dopey or weirdly speedy and may take the edge off, but there is no cure for hay fever. There is little comfort for the afflicted; we suffer in silence except for public sneezing attacks and weeping in the park. Mustn't grumble, though, because it won't kill us … unless we are prone to severe asthma. Enjoy the weather, just don't breathe, and then you won't inhale all the bad pollen. | |
| For years I thought allergies were for oversensitive wusses, until I went to the doctors a few year ago with what I thought must be tonsillitis only to find I was allergic to trees. | For years I thought allergies were for oversensitive wusses, until I went to the doctors a few year ago with what I thought must be tonsillitis only to find I was allergic to trees. |
| Hay fever usually accounts for between 2% and 3% of GP visits, but it is more at the moment – it is hitting older people and is particularly miserable for teens and those in their 20s during exam time. | Hay fever usually accounts for between 2% and 3% of GP visits, but it is more at the moment – it is hitting older people and is particularly miserable for teens and those in their 20s during exam time. |
| As there is no cure the alternative market spies a cash-cow and offers a range of extremely expensive waters or pills in tiny bottles. This is called homeopathy and the only thing I will say in its defence is that, though fundamentally useless, no one has ever been as interested in me whingeing on as the ruddy-faced women who diagnosed my hay fever not as a reaction to pollen or even pollution, but as repressed grief about my mother's death. This cheap trick did actually take my mind off the mucous for a while, but of course was way more costly than any number of nasal sprays. | As there is no cure the alternative market spies a cash-cow and offers a range of extremely expensive waters or pills in tiny bottles. This is called homeopathy and the only thing I will say in its defence is that, though fundamentally useless, no one has ever been as interested in me whingeing on as the ruddy-faced women who diagnosed my hay fever not as a reaction to pollen or even pollution, but as repressed grief about my mother's death. This cheap trick did actually take my mind off the mucous for a while, but of course was way more costly than any number of nasal sprays. |
| It's really not cool to moan about hay fever when all around you people are suffering in far worse ways, but then "irritability" is a symptom. My fellow sufferers will have read the routine lists on how to prepare for the inevitable onslaught of feeling submerged and completely rubbish. But I rather like the person who underneath one of said lists tweeted: "I'M GOING TO DIE, THAT'S HOW I'M GOING TO PREPARE #hayfeversusceptible #doomed #achoo." | It's really not cool to moan about hay fever when all around you people are suffering in far worse ways, but then "irritability" is a symptom. My fellow sufferers will have read the routine lists on how to prepare for the inevitable onslaught of feeling submerged and completely rubbish. But I rather like the person who underneath one of said lists tweeted: "I'M GOING TO DIE, THAT'S HOW I'M GOING TO PREPARE #hayfeversusceptible #doomed #achoo." |
| Bless you. I don't think you are over reacting at all. | Bless you. I don't think you are over reacting at all. |