Do you have an allergy?

The first question that you must answer is "do I have an environmental allergy?" The most common dilemma along this line is whether the nasal symptoms you're experiencing are due to allergy or due to a common cold.

Let's look at the differences:

Allergies typically begin in association with exposure to an identifiable environmental trigger. In the spring, that trigger is typically grass or tree pollen, and in the autumn the trigger is weed pollen or mold.

Colds, in contrast, are caught from someone else as an invisible virus is passed person-to-person and usually hand to mouth. Allergy symptoms continue for a longer period of time than cold symptoms. Allergies last months during which pollen rains down on us versus a week of cold symptoms while your body's immune system eradicates the cold virus. Environmental allergy symptoms, except those associated with a severe allergy to a food like peanuts or to medications such as penicillin or sulfa drugs, tend to be milder than those due to infection. Finally, allergies rarely have associated bodily symptoms such as fever and body ache, while those are hallmarks of colds.