# 29 - Achoo! 🤧 Do you have seasonal allergies?

Are you having allergy symptoms right now, dear listener?  A lot of people are!
Allergies are an over-reaction of our immune system to something in our environment - something that usually isn't really dangerous, but our immune system reacts like it is dangerous. Our immune system, says "Hey! This is a problem and we need to put up a fight against it."

That "fight" causes the allergy symptoms that some people have.

People can be allergic to almost anything.  (Notice that we say allergic to.)_Some common things that people are allergic to  are dust, animal dander (little pieces or flakes of skin) or fur, foods (seafood and nuts are common food allergies), medications, and pollen.  We call pollen allergies environmental allergies because they are caused by our environment - the world we live in. We also call them seasonal allergies because they are most common during certain seasons of the year.
Pollen allergies are common this time of the year - in the spring and early summer.  Pollen is a fine powder that is made by certain plants as part of their reproductive  process. Pollen is carried by the wind, so it is everywhere! It irritates or bothers our mucous membranes (the slippery linings of our nose, mouth, throat and eyes).

The symptoms of environmental or pollen allergies are caused by that irritation to the mucous membranes. The irritation to our nose makes us sneeze and our nose run. Our nose isn't going anywhere. We say our nose is running when a clear liquid  - or mucous is coming from our nose and we need to wipe our nose with  tissues or Kleenex. When this happens we say we have runny nose. The irritation to our eyes makes our eyes red and watery. The irritation to our throat makes us cough. For some people, the irritation to the lining of the lungs causes asthma symptoms that can be serious.

Fortunately for most people environmental allergies are not dangerous. They are just an annoying nuisance (we say "nu sens".)

What can we do if we are allergic to pollen? We can try to avoid pollen, but that's not easy. We can't stay indoors all spring and summer! We can take antihistamine medicine - pills or eye drops.  Antihistamine medication is usually available over the counter or OTC. We can buy  OTC medicine without a prescription (written order) from the doctor.

So, those of us who have environmental allergies can take OTC medicine and  "grin and bear it." A grin is noun meaning a big smile and to bear is a verb that means to tolerate or accept something. So to grin and bear it means to accept a difficult situation without complaining. Notice that "bear" is the same word as the noun that means a large animal that lives in the woods.  Crazy English!

So, dear listener, if you have seasonal environmental allergies like we do, let's grin and bear it and enjoy this amazing time of the year!  

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