Sacramento Season Change – Feeling Sniffly?
With seasonal changes, allergies and colds happen, especially here in Sacramento, but here’s how can you help prevent the suffering.
By nowproducerdave on March 20, 2018
It’s the first day of spring today here in Sacramento (well, everywhere else too I guess). Do you feel sniffly whenever there’s a season change? It may not be allergies, but there are a lot of other factors that are battling our sinuses.
We’re also coming off what we’re pretty sure was the worst flu season ever, and it’s actually still going around, but nowhere near as bad as a couple months ago. But it never fails, you any time the weather changes you end up with a stuffy nose, or worse, a full-on cold. Long story short, the biggest offenders are spring and autumn. We get stuck with all that pollen during those seasons, and even if you don’t have “allergies,” your body is still actually fighting against that pollen. Your sinuses swell up which causes the stuffy nose feeling. Now, while your body is fighting with the polle, your immune system is a little weakened, and now any bacteria or viruses you have in your nose (which catches and “filters” things while you breathe, there’s no avoiding it) can multiply and grow faster than your immune system can fight. That’s how we get colds during the seasonal changes.
It’s not just the pollen either. Let’s say you totally have zero problems with pollen. You can grab a fresh flower and bury your nose in it to smell, and nothing at all happens. No nasal swelling, no eye watering, not a thing. Changes in the weather probably still affect you, which is exactly what happens as we get closer to, and in to, spring/autumn. Not only that, but your immune system is actually less effective during drastic weather changes, and that’s how the cold virus can get in. Also, the cold is more common during cooler weather, but you can still catch one year-round.
“What can I do?” The basics. Wash your hands, don’t touch your face, etc. It’s also suggested that you keep your nose/face warm with a scarf or something like that. Vitamin D has been found to help prevent colds (like vitamin C too), and they also say that regular exercise can help boost the immune system. Nifty. Check out some more info about seasonal allergy/cold virus facts here. So if you’re feeling stuffy for no reason, that reason may very well just be the season change.
