Pollen and Other Stuff
Pollen season continues to be upon us. March and April are the worst for me, though I suffer all year round. And then, the Powerhouse Fire that started this weekend was devastating for me. The air started smelling of smoke around my house, and the pillars of smoke rose over the nearby mountains signalling the start of something bad. I was mowing my lawn but decided to do only the front. Already I could feel some discomfort from the particulates in the air. In addition to having normal hay-fever, I developed adult onset asthma. It is primarily triggered by pollen, and specifically the pollen of the Mulberry tree.
In any case, I went inside after that and felt okay the rest of the evening. But then at 1:30 AM Sunday I woke up because I couldn’t breathe. If you’ve ever had the wind knocked out of you, then you have a good sense of what it was like. As I grabbed my emergency inhaler (which I always keep nearby), I thought to myself that this would be a really unpleasant way to die. I’ve been told that asthma can kill you. I’d never felt like that was really a possibility until that moment. Thankfully the inhaler worked and my breathing soon returned to normal. It was the worst asthma attack I’ve had in the last ten years. In fact, with my various medications I am mostly symptom free of both hay-fever as well as asthma. But not early Sunday morning. I’ve been just fine, since, thankfully.
Allergies in general are the consequence of having an overly vigilant immune system. Or a stupid one. My immune system attacks harmless visitors with the same vigor it attacks bacteria. On the plus side, I rarely get ill. On the downside, I have a tendency to sneeze like crazy over nothing.
But my allergy medications have been very effective at soothing my overactive immune system. My allergy doctor tested me a few years ago to find out what I’m allergic to. His conclusion was that if it blooms, I’ll sneeze at it. He’s never seen anyone with worse allergies in all his years of treating patients. I always wanted to be top in my field, but that wasn’t quite how I pictured it.
One evening about twelve years ago I was feeling really gloomy, very despondent. I have a tendency toward depression as well as sneezing. Since I was also starting to get the sniffles—it was early March—I took my prescription allergy medication before I went to bed. In the morning, I not only wasn’t sneezing, I wasn’t gloomy anymore. Nothing had changed in my life, however, except taking my allergy pills to relieve my sneezing.
I began wondering at that moment whether there might be a connection between a life long tendency toward depression and my life long severe allergies. After doing a bit of research, I discovered that a link had been noted by doctors between severe allergies and a tendency toward depression, at least in some instances. The connection seems more definite for women than men. However, since I became aware of possibility that my despondency and melancholy might be connected to pollen exposure, I’ve been much more diligent and consistent about taking my allergy medication. My sneezing, runny nose, watery eyes have gone away; I’m essentially symptom free all year long now. Even more significantly, my depression is mostly non-existent now, too.
I’ve also been active in retraining my thoughts. Although eliminating my allergies eliminated the physiological basis for my with my depression, I still had a lifetime’s worth of bad mental habits to overcome. A depressive person has a litany of negative phrases that he will tend to play in his head like a demotivational tape. I had to record new thoughts for myself.
So, I adjusted my behavior. I began exercising more, made a point to get more sleep, and improved my diet. Three years ago I began writing a personal journal every night before I went to bed to recount the events of my day. It has shown me that the good actually outnumbers the bad in my days. To make sure I would keep up the journal, I email a copy of it to my wife and a friend every night. In addition, I regularly read poetry, reread certain passages of the Bible that encourage me, and practice regular prayer, and meditation. All these things have been helpful in correcting a lifetime of bad thought ruts.
The consequence is that I have eliminated my depression nearly entirely. I still have the occasional gloomy moment, but nothing like the pain I used to endure almost constantly.
If you have pollen allergies, Pollen.com is a handy place to visit. Just put in your zip code and you’ll get an idea of how bad the pollen is where you live, as well as what sorts of plants are responsible. You can even get free email alerts. Also, if you have pollen allergies, make an appointment with an allergist, a doctor who specializes in treating allergies. The medications and treatments available today are very effective and lack the side effects that the older medications used to have. There’s no need to “put up with” the discomfort.
If you suffer from depression, you should also make an appointment with your doctor. You wouldn’t imagine that you could “just snap out of it” if you had cancer or a bleeding ulcer. Why do you think depression is any less a medical condition? It is very odd that there is still a stigma attached to things like depression. Many people have a tendency to think that depression is something that you’d overcome if only you were somehow stronger or a better person. That’s nonsense. The fact of the matter is that depression is physiologically based, just as much as diabetes is. You’re not going to just snap out of it. And there are now very effective treatments for depression. Talk to your doctor.
If you have a friend or family member who is suffering from depression, encourage that person to seek medical attention. Offer to take them. If they were having a heart attack you wouldn’t just pat them on the back and tell them to “cheer up” now would you?
