allergies and seasonal drops in performance

I am no longer competing but I am finding claritin or zanax (sp) works best combined with a flonase spray. Same thing, great training over the winter, get my ass in sub 2:20 shape and then feel like my chest was going to cave in on me for the months of April, May and June. it would then start up again in the fall and last until late November. It really sucked if you wanted to be a decent marathoner.

I have definitely been affected this season and am also interested to know what others have done for treatment. I took allergy shots as a kid for my pollen allergies, but by the time I was in college I assumed I had outgrown them and always attributed my drops in performance in the spring to low iron, not trying hard enough, or being burned out from indoor track. The past 3 seasons have been terrible. I still compete on my own, but not that seriously, so this year I just decided to take a break until I felt better. I was running 70-90 miles a week over the winter with 1-2 workouts plus a long run. From mid-March to now, I’ve only been able to run about 30 miles a week and usually skip 3-4 days because of how bad I feel. When I try to run, my legs feel heavy, I breathe like I’m doing a hard workout even running slow, and afterward I am completely wiped out for the rest of the day and often the next 2-3 days. I have a hard time concentrating at work too and feel like I need 10-12 hours of sleep rather than my usual 7-8. Generally I’m just tired all the time.

I went to a doctor last season but not an allergy specialist. The doctor said my iron and thyroid levels were fine, couldn’t find anything wrong, and suggested that I was depressed. I agree I wasn’t in the best of spirits given the way I was feeling, but it also enforced my usual experience of going to the doctor and not getting any useful information. Hence why this year I just said f*** it, I’m just going to take a break until I feel better. Also, I’ve tried Claritin. It cleared me up a bit but did nothing for my energy levels. Running at different times a days or going indoors doesn’t seem to make a difference either.

It is less frustrating now that I’m not on a team and can compete when I want, but it would also be nice to have the option to run a spring marathon. For those that take allergy shots, do they make that much of a difference?

I will help you out here.

I am a normally positive guy, good energy levels, etc. but I plunge into depression during the spring. Countless times I have had great winters of training that were destroyed by the spring where I have zero motivation, I am cranky, pissed off, feel tired and have no focus whatsoever. During college, I therw in the towel on 3 occasions during track season because of this. Also, my best track times for distance races are all from indoors (3k, 5k) ... after a while, well after college I saw the pattern emerge and even consulted a shrink who even suggested that I might be bi-polar but soon discovered some great research in some online journals.

On mulitple occasions I have seen allergists who say "you are only mildly allergic" ... maybe you should try an anti-depressant? Well, I wouldn't need an anti depressant if I didn't have these specific allergy problems. My typical allergy symptoms are not so bad - (sinuses, watery eyes, sneezing, etc.)

Long story short, the issue is cytokines, I will leave it up to you to research cytokines, allergy symptoms, etc. basically cytokines cause the "sick" feelings, low energy, aches and pains, grouchy, etc. basically these are signals from your body which tells you that you are sick and should not be active etc.

Try - Stinging Nettle Leaves, Pycnogenol and quercetin - go to the local health food store. It can make a huge change in your life - trust me on this.

Feel free to shoot me an email if you like.

In general, some people experience the typical allergy symptoms, while others fall into a different category, and experience allergic effects in the brain.

Long story short, the cytokines are released in response to an over active or "bored" immune system - you should have picked up a few more parasites when you were a kid so that your immune system would have really had something to worry about.

"infection-like sickness behavior symptoms following exogenous administration of cytokines which act centrally and synergistically to induce sickness behavior."

Basically, they injected people with cytokines and they felt the way you feel.

Here is some research.

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2196438

http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/37/18/23

http://www.articlearchives.com/medicine-health/diseases-disorders-mental/1901273-1.html

http://www.mcmaster.ca/inabis98/anisman/yirmiya0194/two.html

cytokine inhibition

nettle leaf

quercetin

grape seed

epa (most effective) dha - mildly effective

ginger

Great. Thanks for the advice. I am willing to try anything at this point. Your symptoms sound just like mine. I have gotten so that I dread spring every year. Everyone else is excited about the warmer weather, and I am a grouch because of how miserable I am feeling. I even skipped the OT marathon last April because my training from March on was so terrible.

If this works, I will owe ya one. How long until you noticed a difference?

With the stinging nettle - things can turn around quickly, like maybe in an afternoon. Pycnogenol takes a bit ... it is expensive, but seems to work well. All in all, I would give it 2- 3 weeks. If the pycnogeol is too expensive, go for the stinging nettle and the quercetin - both are relatively inexepensive. Claritin and similar were good for treating the typical symptoms, but as you mentioned did nothing for the feelings of lack of motivation, lethargy and really foul mood.

Also, if you are in the midst of feeling down and out, it may take a week or so to turn things around. One more thing ... I take St. John's Wort as well - prior to the allergy season, it has anti-depressant quailites, ... it doesn't make you happy or crazy, but it does lessen the down side of this allergy induced malaise.

So my general plan of attack these days is to start this treatment early ... just to be safe, about 1 month before allergy season typically starts. If you can expose your body to the allergen, without triggering a big immune response then your symptoms *may* lessen in the coming years. I keep this up until the first week of June or so, the weather here typically turns very hot and dry and all of the plants are typically scorched. I noticed that I am also hit by a mild wave of this malaise during the fall, corresponding with the late blooming plants like ragweed. With the fall allergies, I have no troubles as soon as the first hard freeze comes in.

I do have some moderate seasonal allergy symptoms - sneezing fits (sneezing continuously for 10 min) dark circles under the eyes and watery, itchy eyes. Sometimes my "treatment" works so well that I forget that I have allergy problems and forget ... my first reminder is the 10 min sneezing fit. =)

It still helps to less your exposure to allergens ... maybe sleep with an air purifier in your bedroom and make sure that you wash your hair nightly, wash your pillow cases and sheets frequently and if you have dogs which are outside, make sure that they get a frequent bath. This simply serves to help get rid of the pollen and allergens. i.e. if you have pollen in your hair, then put your head on the pillow, you deposit this on your pillow and you breathe it in all night.

Hope this helps!

Correction^ It still helps to >lessen<

;-)

thanks for all the helpful advice. Has anyone tried Singular? This seemed to help but weight gain is apparently a problem with it. Other good nasal spray/allergy med combos that work specifically for outdoor plant/grass/pollen based allergies?

Sorry for bumping such an old thread. I think I just an allergy wall in the past week and a half. 10 days ago I started feeling really bad on my runs. I had a bad workout and took the next day off, felt OK the next day and then on a cold rainy day had a great workout. Then it warmed up again and I just felt terrible. Yesterday it was really hot out for the run (80 degrees) and I had the worst run of my life. I'm hoping it's allergies; I don't think it's overtraining because it came on so suddenly and I felt fine before. I don't think it's anemia for the same reason, but I've never really had any allergy problems in prior years that I can remember. Any help??? I'm seeing a doctor today so hopefully he can point me in the right direction.

Hi

Woaw.. that is a very old thread coming back up.

I am the same schnapie that wrote 4 years ago.

An advice, just do Cortizone Shots during the rough season and try to desensitize ( see a doctor).

I didnt do it and should have done it systematically, so I just got really frustrated at that time and stoped running for three years.

Nasonex and other stuff works for two or three month but the effect tends to be smaller and smaller after a while.

Take it easy the next few weeks and move your hard workouts inside (treadmill). Take allergy medication (like Claritin). Focus on fall races.

I wish I had paid more heed to this thread few years ago. Suggestions by "knower" about stinging nettle/quercetin are spot-on. I am a lifelong sufferer who had many track seasons ended by Spring allergies, and it had gotten to where even going outside this time of year was sickening to consider, much less running.

This spring started no different, with coughing and sneezing, in addition to just feeling like crap. I wandered into a supplement store, actually to get pycnogerol, as per the above suggestions. The woman who helped me steered me instead to the nettle/q, saying that pycnogerol was mostly just an anti-oxidant, rather than anti-histamine. My symptoms began alleviating hours later, and now, two months later, I can say that I am symptom-free. We had our biggest pollen day of the year so far two days ago, and I ran 14 miles without adverse symptoms.

The other element in this amazing turn-around has been colostrum. The colostrum thread from earlier this winter got me interested, due to G.I. issues I've always had which were made worse by running. Again, the improvement was within days, and I am now able to eat foods I've had to avoid for decades. I also suspect that the colostrum has been synergistic with the nettle, as it apparently provides marked immune system strengthening.

In any case, my life seems to be taking a turn for the better on these two supplements, with better performance at work, as an athlete and in my attitude in general.

Just wanted to bump this in light of people talking about Rupp's allergy problems. I've suffered from a lot of the problems described in this thread, and I think it's fairly common for distance runners to struggle with high pollen counts in outdoor track.

Super useful thread.