Really High Spring/summer Pollen Count In Perth.

[trinabean]

Although the story is about people, and the hayfever, allergies and asthma triggered this season in Perth, it is relevant to people with dogs who are allergic to pollens. Just thought it might be helpful to anyone else whose dogs' allergies have flared at the moment:

Hay fever season shaping up to be one of the worst in years

Updated 5 hours 8 minutes ago

Photo: A plane tree in East Perth which dumps lots of pollen. (ABC News) Map: Perth 6000 The hay fever season in Perth is shaping up to be one of the worst in years.

Weather conditions are ideal for pollen production and health experts have issued a warning for those who suffer from allergies and asthma.

The city has one of the highest spring-summer pollen counts of any in the world.

Curtin University palynologist Lynne Milne says weather conditions for pollen production are ideal and there is little relief in sight for sufferers.

"I think the season has started a little bit late but I do think it's probably going to be quite bad because of the extra rain that we've had," she said.

"Now the sunshine is here, we've got the easterly winds like we've got today, and for me, today's a bad hay fever day."

About 20 per cent of Perth's population suffers allergic rhinitis.

Symptoms range from a runny nose to watery, itchy eyes and frequent sneezing.

Clinical immunologist Michael O'Sullivan says, in some cases, hay fever can be debilitating, particularly for those with asthma.

"A lot of patients don't really appreciate just how bad their symptoms are and so a lot of the time they're actually under-treated," he said.

"And, we do have some quite effective medication treatments available for them."

The Lung Institute's WA director Philip Thompson says the treatment approach should be simple.

"If you sneeze a lot you need an antihistamine, if you're blocked up you need a decongestant and if you want to prevent the problem because it's a chronic issue for you, you need to use nasal steroid sprays," he said.

Health experts say changes in the climate are resulting in a more allergic environment in Perth and future hay fever seasons are likely to be longer and more severe.

[CrazyCresties]

I'm so snuffley today! Daisy has been worse with her foot chewing recently, so wonder if it's related. Thanks for the info :)

[pie]

My dog isn't particularly allergic but the last few days I have noticed he has been chewing all his feet and has runny eyes - thought it might be related.

I don't get hayfever too bad - but might have to get some telfast by the sounds - to snop the annoying sneezing!

We have plane trees all down the road at work - so annoying when they are dropping pollen, it gets into the mailboxes and when I check them it blows straight into my eyes - blergh!

[Daisys Mum]

I had to take Sasha to the vet on Tuesday because this time every year she gets eye allergies ... She has very short eyelashes so when it's a windy day stuff gets in her eye :/

[Erny]

I do *get* that pollens can and often do trigger allergy symptoms. What I don't *get* is why everyone (people AND dogs) seem to becoming so much more sensitive to these triggers. Well - actually, I think I do *get* that as well, but we all seem to stop at finding the topical cause of an allergy problem rather than going further to address underlying cause. In my mind, that has to go back to how optimal their systems are running and that begs the question as to why they aren't running to the optimum they can be.

Must admit that for me, this goes back to what we feed; what their parents were fed; what their parents before that were fed.

I admit - general contaminate pollutions that are in the air would be putting a tax on all immune systems and having them run hard, which would add to the lowering of resistance to things that would otherwise be easily coped with in the absence of excessive symptoms.

Just a muse that I think we should all be keeping in our minds.

Edited October 25, 2013 by Erny

[megan_]

Interestingly Erny I saw a link from moogoo on Facebook to a study that showed correlation of gut health with allergies.

My allergies have been the worst they have been in years - I wake up with eyes so dry they hurt.

[Erny]

Interestingly Erny I saw a link from moogoo on Facebook to a study that showed correlation of gut health with allergies.

Learnt and learning a bucket-load from my years of trial, error and research effort for my current boy. I'm even drawing a conclusion in my mind (with the help of what I've learnt, suspected, and spoken to others about) regards to bloat in dogs and what could be one of the common underlying triggers for it. Even the experts concede that a bloat incident doesn't necessarily directly correlate to what a dog is fed; how it is presented (i.e. wet or dry); whether a dog has exercised too soon afterwards; etc. In fact, the bottom line response is that they really don't know why it occurs.

We really do need to go backwards to go forwards, me thinks, and begin re-addressing all the things we fill our dogs with.

My allergies have been the worst they have been in years - I wake up with eyes so dry they hurt.

Dry eyes here too, Megan. I think that if I ate what I feed my dog (and I could, as it is all human-grade) would have me mega-healthy. Pity I'm not as strict with me as I am with my dog, lol.

[trinabean]

I do *get* that pollens can and often do trigger allergy symptoms. What I don't *get* is why everyone (people AND dogs) seem to becoming so much more sensitive to these triggers. Well - actually, I think I do *get* that as well, but we all seem to stop at finding the topical cause of an allergy problem rather than going further to address underlying cause. In my mind, that has to go back to how optimal their systems are running and that begs the question as to why they aren't running to the optimum they can be.

Must admit that for me, this goes back to what we feed; what their parents were fed; what their parents before that were fed.

I admit - general contaminate pollutions that are in the air would be putting a tax on all immune systems and having them run hard, which would add to the lowering of resistance to things that would otherwise be easily coped with in the absence of excessive symptoms.

Just a muse that I think we should all be keeping in our minds.

Yes, I agree that there is probably a link to general health and what we feed our dogs. My dog has had GI issues his whole life. I was seeking vet help for GI issues long before he became an itchy dog.

It's a bit of a chicken and egg situation though. Having had the intra-dermal and blood serum tests done, I know exactly which pollens and allergens make Bruno's skin itch. The dermatologist has been guiding us through an elimination diet and a sequential re-challenge of foods that are commonly problematic (chicken, beef, lamb, dairy, wheat, soy etc).

We can only learn which foods Bruno can tolerate during winter. His spring/ summer severe itching makes it impossible to guage whether he is reacting to a food or just the environment, or both. So far I know that chicken, beef and lamb are all foods that make Bruno itch. We got up to testing dairy and had to abandon the challenge as the pollens hit Perth in full force. It's so laborious and frustrating.

So Bruno is one of the unlucky ones with both food and environmental allergies. I thought I'd share the news story as many more 'normal' dogs (don't tell Bruno he's a lemon :laugh:) are affected by seasonal allergies. After seeing how badly Bruno has been hit this spring, the news article helped explain the reason for the severity of his symptoms.

I was surprised (and a bit horrified) to read that Perth has one of the highest pollen counts of any city in the world. We have such a long season of spring/summer weather conditions too, - even autumn is hot. And Perth is windy, so pollens really get around.

[trinabean]

I'm so snuffley today! Daisy has been worse with her foot chewing recently, so wonder if it's related. Thanks for the info :)

Yes, it's the constant foot-chewing until bleeding, that had us back at the vet recently. We had to resort to prednisolone (on top of antihistamines) to settle things down.

My dog isn't particularly allergic but the last few days I have noticed he has been chewing all his feet and has runny eyes - thought it might be related.

I don't get hayfever too bad - but might have to get some telfast by the sounds - to snop the annoying sneezing!

We have plane trees all down the road at work - so annoying when they are dropping pollen, it gets into the mailboxes and when I check them it blows straight into my eyes - blergh!

Ouch! Nasty plane trees!

[CrazyCresties]

I'm so snuffley today! Daisy has been worse with her foot chewing recently, so wonder if it's related. Thanks for the info :)

Yes, it's the constant foot-chewing until bleeding, that had us back at the vet recently. We had to resort to prednisolone (on top of antihistamines) to settle things down.

I think with Daisy it's partly habit due to the crappy start she had in life, and partly allergies. Before we moved over here her foot chewing had almost stopped and it's been up and down since we've been here, but the past couple of months certainly seem to have been worse

When Louis went down with his IMHA, my vet and I had a joke that it was because he was feeling left out as both the others were on pred - Daisy intermittently for her allergies, and Indy because she has allergic asthma and triaditis *rolleyes*