Experts Predict Brutal Allergy Season Ahead for New England

Dr. Paige Wickner, an allergist and immunologist at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, is warning allergy sufferers that a tough season lies ahead. Many different factors are contributing to an uptick in pollen this coming spring.

According to Boston News25, this year's mild winter New England plus the early arrival of spring are the main causes of what could be an early and brutal season for allergy sufferers. The news outlet reports that Spring 2020 officially starts on March 19, the earliest we've welcomed the season in over 124 years, after a winter that was one of the mildest in recent memory.

There is a price to pay for the ponds that never froze, the cold that rarely came, the soil that got soaked this winter instead of snowed over - and we will pay it in pollen.

Allergists mostly rely on precipitation (rainfall and snowfall) and temperature to predict what the upcoming season will bring and typically speaking the warmer temperatures are, the more pollen will be produced. Allergy organizations say a large part of it is a warming planet that ends up producing more pollen.

Unfortunately, all of these factors mean earlier symptoms coupled with longer duration of symptoms. Wickner recommends that those who suffer from seasonal allergies get a jump on the season by starting an over the counter daily medication sooner rather than later, essentially before things start to bloom.

Once someone is feeling congested, feeling itchy eyes, sneezing, tickling and cough in the back of their throat... it’s much harder to sort of backtrack. To get them back to baseline, back to feeling 100%