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I Have A Stuffy Nose, How Can I Tell If It's Hay Fever, COVID Or Something Else?
Hay fever (also called allergic rhinitis) affects 24% of Australians. Symptoms include sneezing, a runny nose (which may feel blocked or stuffy) and itchy eyes. People can also experience an itchy nose, throat or ears.
But COVID is still spreading, and other viruses can cause cold-like symptoms. So how do you know which one you've got?
Remind me, how does hay fever cause symptoms?Hay fever happens when a person has become "sensitised" to an allergen trigger. This means a person's body is always primed to react to this trigger.
Triggers can include allergens in the air (such as pollen from trees, grasses and flowers), mould spores, animals or house dust mites which mostly live in people's mattresses and bedding, and feed on shed skin.
When the body is exposed to the trigger, it produces IgE (immunoglobulin E) antibodies. These cause the release of many of the body's own chemicals, including histamine, which result in hay fever symptoms.
People who have asthma may find their asthma symptoms (cough, wheeze, tight chest or trouble breathing) worsen when exposed to airborne allergens. Spring and sometimes into summer can be the worst time for people with grass, tree or flower allergies.
However, animal and house dust mite symptoms usually happen year-round.
Ryegrass pollen is a common culprit. Bangku ceria/Shutterstock What else might be causing my symptoms?Hay fever does not cause a fever, sore throat, muscle aches and pains, weakness, loss of taste or smell, nor does it cause you to cough up mucus.
These symptoms are likely to be caused by a virus, such as COVID, influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) or a "cold" (often caused by rhinoviruses). These conditions can occur all year round, with some overlap of symptoms:
Natasha Yates/The ConversationCOVID still surrounds us. RSV and influenza rates appear higher than before the COVID pandemic, but it may be due to more testing.
So if you have a fever, sore throat, muscle aches/pains, weakness, fatigue, or are coughing up mucus, stay home and avoid mixing with others to limit transmission.
People with COVID symptoms can take a rapid antigen test (RAT), ideally when symptoms start, then isolate until symptoms disappear. One negative RAT alone can't rule out COVID if symptoms are still present, so test again 24–48 hours after your initial test if symptoms persist.
You can now test yourself for COVID, RSV and influenza in a combined RAT. But again, a negative test doesn't rule out the virus. If your symptoms continue, test again 24–48 hours after the previous test.
If it's hay fever, how do I treat it?Treatment involves blocking the body's histamine release, by taking antihistamine medication which helps reduce the symptoms.
Doctors, nurse practitioners and pharmacists can develop a hay fever care plan. This may include using a nasal spray containing a topical corticosteroid to help reduce the swelling inside the nose, which causes stuffiness or blockage.
Nasal sprays need to delivered using correct technique and used over several weeks to work properly. Often these sprays can also help lessen the itchy eyes of hay fever.
Drying bed linen and pyjamas inside during spring can lessen symptoms, as can putting a smear of Vaseline in the nostrils when going outside. Pollen sticks to the Vaseline, and gently blowing your nose later removes it.
People with asthma should also have an asthma plan, created by their doctor or nurse practitioner, explaining how to adjust their asthma reliever and preventer medications in hay fever seasons or on allergen exposure.
People with asthma also need to be alert for thunderstorms, where pollens can burst into tinier particles, be inhaled deeper in the lungs and cause a severe asthma attack, and even death.
What if it's COVID, RSV or the flu?Australians aged 70 and over and others with underlying health conditions who test positive for COVID are eligible for antivirals to reduce their chance of severe illness.
Most other people with COVID, RSV and influenza will recover at home with rest, fluids and paracetamol to relieve symptoms. However some groups are at greater risk of serious illness and may require additional treatment or hospitalisation.
For RSV, this includes premature infants, babies 12 months and younger, children under two who have other medical conditions, adults over 75, people with heart and lung conditions, or health conditions that lessens the immune system response.
For influenza, people at higher risk of severe illness are pregnant women, Aboriginal people, people under five or over 65 years, or people with long-term medical conditions, such as kidney, heart, lung or liver disease, diabetes and decreased immunity.
If you're concerned about severe symptoms of COVID, RSV or influenza, consult your doctor or call 000 in an emergency.
If your symptoms are mild but persist, and you're not sure what's causing them, book an appointment with your doctor or nurse practitioner. Although hay fever season is here, we need to avoid spreading other serious infectious.
For more information, you can call the healthdirect helpline on 1800 022 222 (known as NURSE-ON-CALL in Victoria); use the online Symptom Checker; or visit healthdirect.Gov.Au or the Australian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy.
Iowa Resident Dies From Ebola-like Virus That Causes Sufferers To Bleed From Their Eyeballs As CDC Issues Warning
An Iowa resident has died after contracting a frightening viral disease, similar to Ebola, that leaves victims bleeding from their eyeballs.
The patient had returned to the U.S. From West Africa earlier this month bringing the disease know as Lassa Fever, rarely seen in the U.S., back with them, health officials said.
The person was not sick while traveling meaning the risk to fellow airline passengers is 'extremely low,' officials with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
Patients are not believed to be infectious before symptoms occur and the virus is not spread by casual contact.
An Iowa resident has died after contracting a frightening viral disease, Lassa Fever, similar to Ebola, that leaves victims bleeding from their eyeballs
Researchers are seen studying Lassa fever in June of this year. The viral disease is endemic to several West African countries and transmitted by rodents
The patient, who has not been identified publicly, was placed in isolation in hospital at the University of Iowa Health Care Medical Center in Iowa City.
On Monday, testing by the Nebraska Laboratory Response Network revealed the patient had died from Lassa fever.
If the results are confirmed, the Iowa case would be the ninth known case of Lassa fever since 1969 in travelers returning to the U.S. From areas where the disease is found.
The CDC is now assisting Iowa health officials to identify people who had been in contact with the patient after symptoms began. Those identified as being in close contact will be monitored for three weeks.
Lassa fever, which is caused by the Lassa virus, is a relatively common disease in West Africa, with between 100,000 and 300,000 cases diagnosed every year with around 5,000 deaths.
Healthcare workers in protective equipment are seen burying a 13-year-old boy who died from Lassa fever in 2014 (file photo)
The person was not sick while traveling meaning the risk to fellow airline passengers is 'extremely low,' officials with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said
Symptoms are typically mild and include fever, fatigue and headache but some people may develop vomiting, difficulty breathing, facial swelling and pain in the back, chest or stomach.
State and local health officials are trying to work out how the patient became infected.
It's believed they had been in contact with rodents in West Africa.
The virus itself is carried by rodents and spreads to humans through contact with urine or feces droppings of the infected animals.
In rare cases, it can be transmitted among people through direct contact with a sick person's blood or bodily fluids, through mucous membranes or through sexual contact.
Lassa fever was named after a Nigerian town where Western-trained doctors first noted it in 1969.
WHAT IS LASSA FEVER?Scientists first identified the virus causing Lassa fever in 1969. It belongs to the Arenaviridae family.
According to the World Health Organization, 80 per cent of people who get infected won't develop any symptoms. But the virus has a case-fatality rate of around 1 per cent.
Lassa fever is endemic in Nigeria and several other countries on the west coast of Africa, including Liberia and Guinea, according to the WHO.
Symptoms begin with headaches, sore throats and vomiting, but it can trigger bleeding from the mouth, nose or vagina.
However, they gradually progress to shock, seizures, tremors, disorientation and comas without prompt treatment.
A quarter of patients will also experience temporary deafness that will eventually return, medical literature states.
Pregnant women who contract the disease late in pregnancy face an 80 per cent chance of losing their child or dying themselves.
It can either be spread by rats or from person-to-person by exposure to bodily fluids of someone who is infected.
What Vaccine Side Effects Really Mean
Vaccine side effects like soreness, fever, and fatigue scare some people out of getting their shots. Ask a doctor, though, and they'll tell you these unpleasant symptoms have a silver lining: they're a signal that your immune system is firing up in response to the shot, doing exactly what it's supposed to do.
"If you feel bad after the vaccine, at least feel good about feeling bad," says Dr. Kevin Dieckhaus, chief of infectious diseases at UConn Health and co-author of a 2023 study on COVID-19 vaccine side effects.
But is it a bad sign if you don't get side effects after a shot? Does a pain-free next day mean the vaccine didn't work?
Probably not. Here's why.
Why do vaccines cause side effects?Vaccines work by mimicking an infection. They introduce your body to a weakened or broken-down form of a particular pathogen so it can practice defending itself against the real thing. This involves creating antibodies, proteins that attack foreign invaders.
When the immune system fires up in response to the shot, it results in inflammation that can leave you feeling lousy the next day. A flu shot won't give you the flu—you're not actually getting infected—but you may temporarily experience some of the same symptoms.
However, side effects vary. Some shots produce more than others. And even two people who get the exact same vaccine may have totally different reactions, for a range of reasons including age, sex, health and immunization history, and other factors that scientists don't fully understand. "The human body is an amazingly varied machine," Dieckhaus says.
Do stronger side effects mean stronger immune protection?Multiple studies on COVID-19 shots have found at least a modest link between the number and severity of side effects someone experiences after vaccination and the strength or durability of their immune response. A 2022 study pointed to a similar effect for flu shots.
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But not all studies have reached that conclusion. "The literature is pretty mixed," says Florian Krammer, a professor of vaccinology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. "It's highly variable."
Even some studies that have found a correlation have concluded that, when it comes to protection, the difference between people who get side effects and those who don't is so minimal as to barely matter, Krammer adds.
So is it bad not to get side effects after a shot?Don't worry if you feel fine the day after an immunization. While side effects can be a sign of the immune system working, they are not necessary, Krammer says. In fact, vaccine developers usually strive to create a product that works as well as possible while triggering as few side effects as possible.
Almost "everybody gets an immune response" after being vaccinated, Dieckhaus agrees. "If you have symptoms, we just know that your immune response is probably a little bit more robust." Side effects may be the cherry on top of the sundae, but you still have the sundae no matter what.
In the original clinical trials for Pfizer-BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine, for example, less than half of study participants reported side effects, but the shot worked well for the vast majority of people. People who don't respond well to vaccines typically have a medical reason, such as taking an immune-suppressing drug. "If you're a somewhat healthy adult and you don't have side effects, good," Krammer says.
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Plus, trends reported in studies don't always translate to individual experiences, says Dr. Ethan Dutcher, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, San Francisco, and co-author of a recent study on the side effects of COVID-19 vaccines. Overall, his team found that people who experienced lots of side effects after their initial COVID-19 vaccines tended to mount stronger antibody responses. But as with any trend, there were plenty of exceptions. "We had a lot of people who didn't experience tiredness who had higher antibody levels than people who did experience tiredness," Dutcher says.
And, Dieckhaus says, the immune system is complex. His team's study, which also found an association between side effects and durability of immune response, measured only one aspect of it: how long it took antibodies to wane after COVID-19 shots. But that's "just one piece of the puzzle," he says. There are lots of other variables that influence whether someone gets infected and how sick they'll be if they do.
The bottom line: make sure you get your vaccines, and don't worry too much about how you feel afterward. If you have side effects, "you can feel your immune system working," Krammer says. "But if you don't feel that, that's fine too. It's probably still working."
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