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Newswise — MAYWOOD, IL – For more than 20 years, Loyola Medicine‘s Gottlieb Memorial Hospital has provided the Chicago area with updated allergy counts every weekday during allergy season. This year’s official count will resume on Monday, April 1. Allergy sufferers can follow @LoyolaAllergy on X (formerly know as Twitter) or visit loyolamedicine.org/allergy-count for the latest numbers.
Rachna Shah, MD, leads the Loyola Medicine Allergy Count and warns that tree pollen counts are already rising due to the recent unseasonably warm weather. “At the beginning of February, some of my patients started to say, ‘I feel like I’m sneezing more, have itchy eyes, a runny nose, and drainage in the back of the throat;’ all of the symptoms typical of spring allergies. Typically, I don’t see maple pollen until maybe mid-April to May. I was already seeing that a few weeks ago.”
She advises allergy sufferers to stay informed, “Allergy counts are important to help monitor symptoms and prepare for the day.” When pollen levels are high, she recommends people with severe pollen allergies stay indoors, but if that’s not practical, “pollen counts are highest before 10 a.m., so try shifting activities to later in the day. And if you do outdoor activities for more than a couple hours, it can be really helpful to come inside, rinse off, and change clothes.”
In this video, Dr. Shah explains how the count is performed. Pollen samples are gathered every weekday morning from the roof of Gottlieb Memorial Hospital. Pollen grains and mold spores are collected from a cubic meter air sample and counted under a microscope. The counts include daily numbers for mold, tree, grass and weed pollens.
Spring allergies often cause itchy, watery eyes, a runny nose, sneezing, nasal congestion and post-nasal drip. Difficulty breathing, coughing, wheezing and/or shortness of breath can also be triggered by seasonal allergies.
Allergy season commonly runs from March through the first hard freeze in October. Tree pollen generally begins to rise in late March to April, grass pollen arrives in May and June, while weed pollen is most prevalent in July to August. Ragweed typically peaks from late August to the first frost and mold can strike in damp conditions throughout the season.
The daily allergy count is easy to track by following @LoyolaAllergy on X (formerly know as Twitter). For more information, please visit loyolamedicine.org/allergy-count. B-roll of Dr. Shah conducting the allergy account is available to download at this link.
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About Loyola Medicine
Loyola Medicine, a member of Trinity Health, is a nationally ranked academic, quaternary care system based in Chicago’s western suburbs. The three-hospital system includes Loyola University Medical Center, Gottlieb Memorial Hospital, MacNeal Hospital, as well as convenient locations offering primary care, specialty care and immediate care services from more than 1,500 physicians throughout Cook, Will and DuPage counties. Loyola is a 547-licensed-bed hospital in Maywood that includes the William G. and Mary A. Ryan Center for Heart & Vascular Medicine, the Cardinal Bernardin Cancer Center, a Level 1 trauma center, Illinois’s largest burn center, a certified comprehensive stroke center and a children’s hospital. Having delivered compassionate care for over 50 years, Loyola also trains the next generation of caregivers through its academic affiliation with Loyola University Chicago’s Stritch School of Medicine and Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing. Established in 1961, Gottlieb is a 247-licensed-bed community hospital in Melrose Park with the Judd A. Weinberg Emergency Department, the Loyola Center for Metabolic Surgery and Bariatric Care and the Loyola Cancer Care & Research Facility at the Marjorie G. Weinberg Cancer Center. MacNeal is a 374-licensed-bed teaching hospital in Berwyn with advanced medical, surgical and psychiatric services, acute rehabilitation, an inpatient skilled nursing facility and a 68-bed behavioral health program and community clinics.
For more information, visit loyolamedicine.org. You can also follow Loyola Medicine on LinkedIn, Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter).
About Trinity Health
Trinity Health is one of the largest not-for-profit, Catholic health care systems in the nation. It is a family of 121,000 colleagues and nearly 36,500 physicians and clinicians caring for diverse communities across 27 states. Nationally recognized for care and experience, the Trinity Health system includes 101 hospitals, 126 continuing care locations, the second largest PACE program in the country, 136 urgent care locations and many other health and well-being services. In fiscal year 2023, the Livonia, Michigan-based health system invested $1.5 billion in its communities in the form of charity care and other community benefit programs. For more information, visit us at www.trinity-health.org, or follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and X (formerly known as Twitter).
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