We’re officially in the season of spring. The weather is warming up, and the days are starting to feel longer now that daylight savings has commenced.

It’s a beautiful time of year especially with many flowers in bloom, but it can also be tough for those with asthma and allergies due to changes in weather and increased pollen levels.

Did you know? It’s not just flowers that increase pollen in spring. In New Zealand, spring pollens can also come from wind-pollinated plants, include pine, macrocarpa, gorse, grasses, and deciduous trees like oak, birch, elm, and poplar.

The link between hay fever and asthma

Hay fever can be caused by triggers such as pollens from grasses, trees or weeds, or animal dander which is very tiny particles of skin that had been shed from animals with fur or feathers. It can cause upper and lower airway inflammation and result in itchy watery eyes, runny nose, sneezing, coughing, sinus pain and congestion.

Most people with allergies react to more than one trigger and sometimes the response is different, so for example getting itchy eyes around cats but a runny nose during pollen season.

But more concerning is that hay fever can lead to an increased risk of serious asthma flare-ups for the 1 in 8 Kiwis living with asthma. The key to reducing the risk of asthma flare-ups is having good control of both hay fever and asthma.

Managing asthma and allergies

Make sure to use your preventer medications as prescribed and keep your asthma reliever with you. It’s also a good time of year to make an appointment with your GP to:

• Talk about asthma and hay fever control. If you have a few asthma symptoms and are not regularly using a preventer, discuss this with your GP.
• Review your asthma action plan.
• Check you are using your inhalers properly.
• Make sure you know what to do during an asthma emergency.

This is particularly important if you’ve previously struggled with increased allergy symptoms like coughing, sneezing, itchy eyes or skin irritation during the spring season. Having allergy symptoms can make asthma harder to control.

Signs of good asthma control

If you have good asthma control on an ongoing basis you are less likely to experience an asthma flare-up. Good asthma control means having all of the following:  

• No night-time symptoms. 
• No symptoms on waking. 
• No reliance on reliever medication. 
• No missed school or workdays. 
• No limits on daily activities. 
• No asthma attacks or flare-ups. 

Regularly waking from asthma symptoms or using your reliever medication more than 2–3 times a week (except before exercise) should not be a ‘normal’ part of having asthma.

See your GP if you have concerns about how well your asthma is controlled. 

Reducing triggers

After visiting your GP to talk about asthma and hay fever control, there are also some simple steps to reduce triggers:

• Keep windows closed when in your car and consider using recirculating air conditioning.
• Don’t mow grass yourself and stay inside when it is being mown.
• Avoid going outdoors on high pollen count days.

Sensitive Choice resources

Sensitive Choice resources help you to understand and manage asthma and allergies so you can live and breathe better. These are a few related resources:  

• Asthma at a glance 
• Asthma medication tips 
• Allergies at a glance 
• Understand which allergens trigger your symptoms 
• Pollen and hay fever 

Visit our resource hub to access all the essential resources.