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This article is from the WebMD Feature Archive
An Allergy-Free Vacation: It's Possible With Planning
A vacationer in Puerto Rico is bitten by mosquitoes, and applies ointment from a local aloe vera plant to stop the itching. Unaware she is allergic to the substance, she applies it again shortly before returning home. By the time she arrives at the airport in the U.S., she has a bright red rash as a souvenir of her holiday.
"We treated her as if she had poison ivy," recalls allergy specialist Ira Finegold, MD. "Her skin was red and raised on her face, arms, and body, exactly in the pattern where she rubbed the aloe."
Finegold, who is chief of allergy at Roosevelt-St. Luke's Medical Center in New York, says the case illustrates how can make a vacation memorable for all the wrong reasons. And it illustrates the cardinal rule of having an allergy-free vacation: know what you're allergic to, and know whether those allergens are going to be waiting for you at your travel destination.
"Allergic individuals are at risk if they don't realize what their allergic exposure is going to be," Finegold says. "This can take the form of mild sniffling and sneezing from featherbeds in Switzerland, or severe or fatal reactions to a food allergy in an enclosed environment."
"It's important to know what you are in for," agrees Barbara Levine, PhD, co-director of human nutrition at Rockefeller University and associate professor of medicine at Cornell Medical College in New York. "Allergens differ somewhat in different parts of the country. You can find out the climate and specific allergens wherever you are going ahead of time."
Plan for Seasonal Allergies
Finegold says pollen counts for many geographic regions can be found online. And people who are highly allergic to pollen will want to avoid certain areas at certain times of the year. "Late August or early September is not the best time to visit New York," he says as an example. "Come back in November."
Levine says the most important task for any kind of travel is to think ahead. "I tell my patients to have a little medical traveling kit, and to include allergy and cold remedies," she tells WebMD.
It's always wise to travel with and certain commercial brands are made to dissolve in the mouth without water. And Finegold says there are a variety of eye drops that can prevent and treat allergic eye reactions.
Deadly Allergies
While many allergies are a nuisance, some can be life threatening.
Finegold says that if people have very their travel kit should also include Epi-Pen, a self-injectable form of epinephrine available only by prescription. "If you've eaten food you are allergic to and your throat is closing, the epinephrine may help save your life," he says.
About those long car rides to the beach and the mountains, Finegold and Levine agree: roll up the windows and turn on the air. "Be sure to use the recirculating fan, not just the vent," Finegold says. "Otherwise all you do is blow pollen into the car from outside."
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