Runny nose, itchy eyes and breathing problems. According to calculations from Asthma and the Allergy Association, pollen allergies cost society approximately SEK 14 billion each year through sick leave.
– There is a vaccination treatment against pollen, now also in readily available tablet form. But it is not used to a high enough extent. This means that many people with allergies have to suffer unnecessarily and that the costs to society become unnecessarily high, says Helena Färnsten, acting secretary general of the Asthma and Allergy Association.
You get the pollen allergy vaccine either via an allergy shot or a tablet and is called allergen immunotherapy (AIT).
Magnus Wickman, allergist and professor emeritus at Karolinska Institutet, is critical of the fact that not all health centers offer vaccines against pollen allergy.
Are there risks in taking a brisk walk or a run with the high pollen levels we have today?
– If you exert yourself physically and start breathing through your mouth and don’t filter the pollen grains through your nose, then you can get asthma, says Magnus Wickman and continues;
– If you have had a reaction in the lower respiratory tract, you should take it a little cautiously.
In the video above: Come along to the doctor’s office in Stockholm, where many people are waiting to be vaccinated against their pollen problems.