Summer syndrome

After decades of never experiencing seasonal allergies, you suddenly find yourself sneezing and sniffling along with the tens of millions of people in the country who suffer from them. What happened?

- MOHANA RAVINDRANATH

“People tend to think of allergies as a childhood thing” and not something they can get later in life, said Dr Tolly Epstein, an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in the US who researches allergies and immunology. But “it's very common to develop new allergies” especially in your 20s, 30s and 40s, she said. And the symptoms aren't always obvious.

Most people with seasonal allergies will have sneezing, itchy eyes or nasal congestion. But those can also be accompanied by fatigue, a headache or sinus pressure — which, if you've never faced allergies before, you might mistake as cold symptoms, Epstein said.

If you've recently developed a pollen allergy, you might also experience itching in your mouth after eating certain raw fruits and vegetables, said Dr Andrew Rorie, an assistant professor in the Division of Allergy and Immunology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. That's because the immune system sometimes confuses proteins in the plants for pollen proteins, he said.

WHAT CAUSES SEASONAL ALLERGIES TO DEVELOP?