POLLEN
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,933
    Just curious - is anyone else on this forum suffering from the incredibly high pollen count affecting the country recently? After about three weeks of stuffed-up nose, sore throat, and pink-eye like symptoms, I'm plagued by a troublesome cough right up until noon. Makes singing less fun!
    Thanked by 1CharlesW
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,982
    It's awful! I played for an early mass where I have a cantor and no choir. The cantor and I were both red-eyed and stuffed up. It was tree pollen, now it is tree and grass pollen with some early ragweed activity. I should buy stock in the company that makes Flonase. East Tennessee is the allergy capitol of the world and some years, even the weather channel awards us that designation. Glad I don't really sing any more because I couldn't.
  • Carol
    Posts: 856
    In the Northeast it has rained so frequently that the pollen keeps being washed out of the air. I am blessed not to be an allergy sufferer, but you have my sympathies.
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    the outdoor stuff hasn't been too much of a problem where I am---but the Easter Flowers at the church are deadly!
    Thanked by 4CharlesW CHGiffen eft94530 PolskaPiano
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,982
    This year we had the florist remove the anthers from the long filaments inside the lilies before they released the pollen.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,416
    I had never thought about the pollen,
    but removing the anthers from Easter lilies is par for the course because it makes the blooms last longer.

    I'm happy to say that any allergy I may have is mild.
    I don't suffer the agonies that I hear tell of.
  • IdeK
    Posts: 87
    My mother is a church florist and she always takes away the lilies' anthers because the flowers last longer and... The florists aren't at risk to get unwashable stains on their garments.
    Thanked by 1CharlesW
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,982
    I'm happy to say that any allergy I may have is mild.
    I don't suffer the agonies that I hear tell of.


    You mean besides your allergy, even aversion, to digital organs:? Seems like real agony to me. ;-)
    Thanked by 1Schönbergian
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,093
    Fortunately, a digital organ is not something one can get wind of, unlike pollen.
    Thanked by 3CharlesW CHGiffen Richard Mix
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Charles,

    That's not an allergy. That's the body's immune response to a dangerous pathogen.....

    but I'll let Jackson respond for himself.
    Thanked by 1M. Jackson Osborn
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,982
    True, Liam. But one can certainly get an earful of them.
  • dad29
    Posts: 2,232
    East Tennessee is the allergy capitol of the world


    Yup. My cousin is an allergist in Nashville and a very happy man, indeed!
    Thanked by 2CharlesW mattebery
  • mmeladirectress
    Posts: 1,100
    my Mom used to say that allergists have the most perfect of all medical practices:
    their patients usually don't die of their allergies,
    but they never get well, either.
    :-)
    Thanked by 3CharlesW CHGiffen Carol
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,982
    That's what I have said about dermatologists. They don't ever cure anyone, you just go back every 3 months forever.
    Thanked by 1mmeladirectress
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,216
    If you take out the antlers, don't the lilies become mere simulacra of flowers?
    Thanked by 3CharlesW CHGiffen Carol
  • Ken of Sarum
    Posts: 406
    When I once lived in San Antonio, TX, I was driving down a Highway and saw what I thought was an enormous amount of smoke cross the Highway. To my amazement and later illness, it was a massive pin oak pollen cloud rolling across the land. San Antonio is a nice place but hot as hell in the summer and pollen central twice a year. I'd never been so sick in my life.
    Thanked by 1CharlesW
  • MichaelDickson
    Posts: 419
    A very nice fellow came up to the choir loft today to compliment the singing and all I could think was "which part was better, the hacking or the wheezing?"
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen CharlesW
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,416
    .
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,982
    I have one of those pin oaks in my backyard. It's an incredibly beautiful tree, but I know about those clouds of pollen.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,093
    Most people don't realize that the cypress-juniper family of trees (often with cedar in common names, like Eastern red cedar, which is a juniper, not a true cedar) is among the earliest and nastiest of the tree pollens, everywhere....

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLY-8_PfxAw
    Thanked by 2CharlesW CHGiffen
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