Identifying and Treating Allergies - A team report.

As a rule allergies, with such symptoms as running noses, sneezing, or sore eyes, are not regarded as very serious complaints, . 

There was a time when it was usual to describe such symptoms as hay fever - as little descriptive of the complaint (more accurately termed allergic rhinitis) as "growing pains" was a correct analysis of the mildly rheumatic-style, lower limb discomfort that may afflict young children.

But allergies, both as to quantity and variety, have been increasing steadily over the years.   The airborne substances that may cause a hypersensitive reaction in some people (typically referred to nowadays in news broadcasts as the "pollen count") can derive from many different pollens than that of hay. 

'My own severe "hay fever" that persisted from childhood for some thirty years' (reports Editor Joe Sinclair) was found to derive from household dust and feathers.  'It ultimately ended when central heating replaced coal fires and an inherited feather duvet was replaced by polyester fibres.'

With such diverse stimulants, the major difficulty is how to identify, with any degree of precision, the cause of the allergic symptoms, and then how to treat them with any degree of success.