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Hayfever Relief

It's not possible to cure allergies - not yet, anyway. But they can be kept under control such that they don't play up, or at least so that when they do you can quickly gain the upper hand.

Let's imagine that you're a hayfever sufferer and that pollen and your body are two football teams from the same city. It's derby day. Now it may not be possible to prevent the supporters of these two teams from being exposed to each other, but it is possible to take steps to minimise the risks and the amount of harm that occurs.

To begin with, you need to keep the two factions away from each other. But this is easier said than done. During the hayfever season, for example, pollen is always around, and even though on a particular day the forecast may say the count is low, you may still be exposed to it. Likewise on match-day there's always the chance that the odd fan will slip through the net and into the lion's den and stir up trouble. Fortunately there are many ways to relieve or prevent trouble.

One way is to put a ring around the group of fans to prevent them from reaching the opposition's area, for example. Mast-cell-stabilising drugs, or cromoglycate-like drugs, act like this by stabilising the outer membrane of the mast cell (the cell containing allergy-triggering chemicals like histamine) and hence preventing its contents from escaping. Another option is to put a police block in the way so one can't get to the other. This is how antihistamines work. Marvellous drugs that, although rarely used to treat asthma or eczema because they have very little beneficial effect on these allergies, are great for treating hayfever, perennial allergic rhinitis and chronic urticaria. Histamine is the chemical responsible for much of the misery of allergies, and it does so by attaching itself to specific receptors in the body. Antihistamines, which come as nasal sprays, eye drops, tablets and creams, also attach to these receptors, and if they get there first they'll prevent histamine from doing so.

Spraying water on something, or somebody, is a very good way of diffusing and calming down a volatile situation - except in wet T-shirt competitions, where it's designed to have the opposite effect! Sometimes it can prevent problems progressing when trouble has already started, like when opposing fans have already made contact with each other. Some drugs, for example steroids contained in nasal sprays, creams and inhalers, play a similar role to this. Like the high-pressure water jet, their effect can be targeted to where it's needed. If this is the lungs, then an inhaler is used; if it's the nose, then nasal sprays or drops are used. The advantage of this is that other parts of the body, the innocent bystanders in T-shirts for example, are less likely to suffer the side effects


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