Low pollen count but still experiencing hayfever symptoms?

Hayfever symptoms with a low pollen count

We know how frustrating it can be – all the pollen forecasts are saying low pollen all day, but you still can’t stop sneezing! How can you possibly still be experiencing hayfever symptoms when there is no pollen in the air to react to?

Trapped pollen in the home

One of the most likely causes is that pollen has become trapped in your home. If you’ve been out and about during high pollen count days, chances are that you brought pollen back into your home with you on your clothes and in your hair – and if you have pets, it’s likely that they’ve brought some in on their fur!

And what do people always recommend during hayfever season? ‘Keep your windows shut!’. In this case, keeping your windows shut might be a bad idea, since all it’s doing is trapping pollen inside your home with you!

What can you do?

Stick any clothes that you’ve worn over the last few days in the wash, wash your bed linen, and have a general clean up and hoover. If you’ve got pets, give them a bath!

Open a few windows to get a draught through your house to sweep pollen away and bring in some fresh air.

In future, make sure to always get changed in the bathroom after coming home during high pollen count days. This ensures pollen doesn’t spread through your home, and since many bathrooms come with extractor fans, pollen can be easily removed from this room. In addition, make sure to always wash your hair before going to bed to make sure you don’t get pollen all over your pillow and sheets.

Over-stimulated immune system

However, it could also just be that your immune system is still in hyperdrive, particularly if you’ve just experienced a long stretch of high and very high pollen counts. At this point, you may be reacting more severely to even very low levels of pollen – remember, a low pollen count doesn’t mean there’s absolutely no pollen in the air!

What can you do?

Supporting your immune system naturally is a great way to prevent this from happening.

One of the best ways to support your immune system during hayfever season is to avoid histamine-containing foods. These include most aged or fermented foods, such as mature cheese, vinegar, sauerkraut or yoghurt. Alcohol is also rich in histamine!

Instead, try to eat some foods rich in anti-histamines. These include garlic, ginger, blueberries, carrots and oranges – essentially, anything high in vitamin C or quercetin will be a huge help.

You should also try to avoid too much refined sugar, as this can trigger an adrenaline rush in the body, causing you to produce more histamine. Avoiding stress will also help to reduce this adrenaline rush, so make sure to take some time to relax and wind down.

For more on easing hayfever using diet, head to our hayfever and diet page.

Remember your hayfever remedies!

It’s important that you keep taking your hayfever medication or remedies even on low pollen count days, as another high pollen count day is often just around the corner! 

We recommend our own Pollinosan tablets for easing hayfever. They might not be as strong as some medication available in your local pharmacy or GP – but the plus side of this is that they won’t give you the same horrible side effects. They are non-drowsy and don’t affect your ability to drive. 

For easing itchy, irritated eyes we’d also recommend our Eyebright Eye Drops, which can be used while wearing contact lenses! 

In addition, you may find that a herbal nasal spray is much gentler on your delicate nasal passagesd than a chemical one. Try our Luffa nasal spray, which helps to gently loosen congestion without causing irritation. It contains a similar complex of herbs as our Pollinosan tablets.

Your local pollen forecast

Stay up-to-date with all the latest information on the pollen count in your area with our local pollen forecasts!

Find your nearest local pollen forecast.