Conway doctor shares tips on dealing with pollen on spring equinox
CONWAY, S.C. (WBTW) — Tuesday marked the first day of spring, and people on the Grand Strand are already feeling the impacts of pollen starting a few weeks earlier than expected.
Dr. Paul Richardson, the chief medical officer at Conway Medical Center, said there has been an uptick of patients with allergy-related symptoms.
“It’s just been busy in general,” Richardson said. “We’ve seen a ton of, we’ve just recently started to kind of come down off of the flu and seeing some out-patient COVID and that kind of thing, so we’re just kind of starting to settle down from that, and now here comes the pollen.
Richardson advises talking to your primary care doctor if you have any chronic medical condition before buying any allergy medicine to make sure that nothing interacts.
“We definitely see a lot more allergies at this time of year as it has started earlier than we’re normally accustomed to, but for sure, that’s a big deal,” he said. “Especially around here, and especially, it just kind of depends, some folks haven’t been exposed to certain allergens if they’ve moved to this area recently, or sometimes you have folks who have been exposed to it and have been here all of their lives and still struggle. It just depends on the individual.”
Richardson explained some of the over-the-counter remedies he recommends to treat allergy-related symptoms.
“There’s a host of over-the-counter medications, antihistamines, decongestants, if you’re a candidate for that kind of thing,” he said. “Some people use nasal steroids, that’s also very effective, especially if you have a lot of, what we call ‘rhinitis,’ or a lot of that kind of symptoms of the nose, so those are really the mainstays of what we use to treat.”
* * *
Hannah Huffstickler is a multimedia journalist at News13. She joined the News13 team in January 2024 after graduating from Coastal Carolina University in December of 2023. Keep up with Hannah on Facebook and Instagram. You can also read more of her work here.
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WBTW.
