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Climate Change: Allergies and ME/CFS

MishMash

MishMash

Messages
445
Location
Georgia
There has been a lot of discussion about ME/CFS triggers in food, additives, environmental toxins vis-a-vis mast cells, histamine-reactive allergies. I think we are missing a much bigger problem.

The massive increase in pollens and molds, brought on by climate change. Summers are longer, and there are more droughts. Since 1995, levels of pollen have gone up by 97%. I sometimes wonder if this, by itself, didn't play a huge factor in rising rates of chronically fatiguing illness and FM. For people with Mastocystitis, or just plain immune activation, pollen allergies are excruciating.

In the US, the records for pollen are being broken every year. Northern Georgia, and Atlanta, had record high pollen counts the last two years. Usually over 1500 is considered high. In Spring 2012 Atlanta was over 10,000 (the article is incorrect). That was just trees. The ragweed was at an all-time high too.

People at work tell me all the time: I don't have allergies, it doesn't bother me. But I notice lots of complaints right around tree pollen season about people feeling tired, not being able to sleep, having body aches, feeling spacy. And these are the healthy people. I can't imagine what it does to folks with ME/CFS.

Fossil-Fueled Heat Wave Spurs Record Allergy Season

By Brad Johnson on Mar 23, 2012 at 1:30 pm
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The warm winter followed by the freakish March heat wave that turned the start of spring into summer has started a record allergy season with a “blast of tree pollen” across the United States:

The surreal heat that’s baking much of the central and eastern USA has unleashed an unusually early and intense blast of tree pollen, making life miserable for tens of millions of people who suffer from seasonal allergies. Forecasters and allergists blame the unseasonably warm weather, and few cold snaps, for causing plants to bloom weeks earlier. Atlanta, for example, smashed an all-time record with 9,369 particles of pollen per cubic meter on Tuesday, coating the city with a thin, yellow layer of pollen.​
Atlanta’s previous record was a pollen count of 6,000 — 1,500 is considered high. Allergist Stanley Fineman, president of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, told USA Today “his allergist colleagues elsewhere in the South as well as in parts of the Northeast and Midwest are all reporting patients with severe allergy symptoms, due to the recent warm weather.”
The “surreal heat,” scientists agree, was fueled by the greenhouse pollution that is transforming our planet into a hotter, more dangerous place to live.
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alex3619

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
Climate change if it unfolds as many predict will not just see a change in allergens. It will see a change is pathogen distribution, especially for vector based diseases like those transmitted by mosquitos or ticks.
 
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