Allergy season is at its peak and Chattanoogans are reaping the consequences.
A Chattanooga Allergy Clinic allergist explained how the prolonged allergy season is causing so many feel miserable.
“This allergy season has been described by many of my patients already as maybe feeling the ‘worst ever,’ and that isn’t really a dramatic sentiment because evidence has shown us that each year we’re noticing that pollen allergy is starting early and lasting longer,” said Chattanooga Allergy Clinic Allergist, Dr. Jessica Van Mason.
Pollen counts in Chattanooga tend to rank higher than most cities in the nation, so it’s not uncommon to see large amounts of community members negatively affected by the spring and fall seasons.
“Chattanooga is famous for a lot of things but if you’re a pollen allergy sufferer, it’s definitely something that you may experience here,” said Dr. Van Mason.
On a scale from 1 to 100 (with 100 being the worst), Chattanooga landed a spring score of 83.91.
“You can have symptoms in February and it can go all the way through October. What we’re seeing every year is that that’s getting earlier, lasting longer and we’re seeing higher pollen count levels than we’ve seen ever before,” said Dr. Van Mason.
...