Is there pollen in the air already?

[dreamshark]

My nose has been running non-stop with explosive sneezing for the last few days, but I'm pretty sure that I don't have a cold because

• I haven't had a sore throat, which is ALWAYS my first cold symptom
• My eyes are a little itchy, which is one of my reactions to pollen
• Nose is cleared up immediately (for 4 hours, anyway) by those little red decongestant pills

I should have started taking them sooner before my nose got sore and all the wastebaskets filled up with used Kleenex, but they raise the blood pressure and I'd rather not do that. I also should apply some allergy eye drops, but I'm too freaked out by the recent news reports of people losing their eyes to antibiotic-resistant infections from contaminated eye drops.

But I can't figure out what's going on. Usually Pollen.com starts sending me pollen notices in late March, but this year they insist that the local pollen count is Low. Is anybody else in Minnesota having hay fever type symptoms? 

Comments

[pameladean]

Well, Pollen.com's page about juniper observes unemotionally: "When weather conditions are supportive, pollen can travel many miles."

A friend of mine is allergic to birch pollen, and was worried that they would have to get rid of the birches in their yard, but the allergist opined that it wouldn't make any difference because there was so very much birch in Minnesota generally.

P.

[dreamshark]

Interesting. I am quite certain that I am allergic to juniper because of an experience a few years ago in one of those botanic mono-cultures that one sometimes encounters in the western third of the US, but there really isn't a lot of true juniper in Minneapolis. There is a lot of cottonwood (which is a poplar), but way over by Lake Harriet. That's only a mile, so maybe it does blow that far.