That's actually not true.

"If you have a hypoallergenic pet,

you won't have an allergic reaction."

Unfortunately, there is no such thing

as a hypoallergenic pet.

"You can outgrow your seasonal allergies."

So, there's no definite way

that you can outgrow your seasonal allergies.

My name is Dr. Wei Wei Li.

I am a board-certified adult and pediatric

allergy immunology specialist.

My name is Dr. Payel Gupta,

and I am also an adult and pediatric

triple-board-certified allergy,

asthma, and immunology doctor.

And today we'll be debunking myths about allergies.

"If you didn't have allergies as a kid,

you won't get them as an adult."

So, that's a myth.

You can actually develop allergies

at any point in your life.

Especially now, with people moving to different locations.

The change in climate, location,

or sometimes adopting a new pet

can increase your risk for developing allergies.

Right. So it's any new exposure, essentially,

can cause your system to start reacting

and develop an allergy.

I've also had it the reverse.

I've also had people who have lived

with cats and dogs while they were children,

and then they decide to get a cat or a dog as an adult,

and they're now allergic.

And so your immune system is constantly changing,

and so you can develop an allergy at any time.

"You should only take allergy medication

once you feel symptoms."

So, that is a myth.

So, if you wait until your symptoms

get super intense and super severe,

then it'll be that much harder

to get those symptoms under control.

So it's a good idea to start early.

Like, if you have pollen allergy in the spring,

I usually say have the patient start premedicating

with antihistamine, nasal spray, or eyedrops

before the season starts.

I usually recommend as soon as they start seeing

even a little bit of the pollen that they're allergic to.

Especially severe seasonal-allergy sufferers,

we have them take them even two weeks in advance,

just so they get used to taking them.

The timing sometime can change from year to year,

depending on the weather.

So you can use the timing from last year

to make approximate guess

to when you can start premedication.

Gupta: Tree allergies are mostly a springtime allergen,

grass allergies are for summer,

and weed allergies are in the fall.

So for people who have tree, grass, and weed,

normally it would've been maybe from, like,

April until September that they might have had symptoms.

But now we're seeing even as early as February, actually.

So February, and then the weed allergen

kind of ending as late as October, November.

And patients ask us, "Is it safe

to take the medication every day?"

I would say if you take the medication

according to how we recommend it,

it is safe and effective.

And it's important to know that

when you take your medication, such as a combination

of oral antihistamine and nasal spray,

together every day, it achieve a better efficacy

than taking it sporadically only when you have symptoms.

"Flowers trigger seasonal allergies."

That's actually not true.

Pollens from flowering plants

are not the main contributor to seasonal-allergy symptoms.

In order for pollen to cause allergic symptoms,

they need to meet three criteria.

They need to be small,

they need to be light,

and they need to be dry to be carried by wind.

Gupta: So the pollen in flowers is actually large,

and it's distributed by insects.

And so that pollen is not in the air,

which means that it doesn't get into our eyes and nose.

However, for tree pollen, weed pollen, and grass pollen,

because it's light

and because it travels in the air more easily,

then it can get into our eyes

and nose and airways more easily.

And because it travels at least around 50 miles,

that means it might not be a tree in your backyard,

it might be a tree somewhere far away

that you're reacting to.

But I do hear that.

Every year a patient come in saying that,

"This is the worst allergy symptom

that I have compared to the past."

So I think that has to do with a number of factors,

such as climate change,

and also planting particular type of tree

in certain location can increase the symptoms.

"Eating local honey can help cure seasonal allergies."

That is a myth because local honey

contains pollen collected by bees.

So those come from flowering plants.

We mentioned before, pollen from flowering plants

are not major contributor to seasonal allergies.

And also we don't have a lot of studies done

on the effectiveness of local honey.

So we cannot know for sure how effective they are

in treating or helping to cure

your seasonal-allergy symptoms.

But I love honey because I use that

to help with allergy symptoms

such as itchy, scratchy throat.

So I have no problem recommending using honey

as a way to soothe your throat, your symptoms.

But I would not say it can cure seasonal allergies.

She nailed it.

Hopefully I can do that every time.

"If you have a hypoallergenic pet,

you won't have an allergic reaction."

So, that's a myth.

So, unfortunately, there is no such thing

as a hypoallergenic pet.

A lot of breeders will claim to have hypoallergenic pets,

but unfortunately there is no

100% animal without any dander.

Li: The pet dander is

the microscopic flecks of skin that the pet shed.

So the same protein can be also found in their saliva.

So it's not the fur,

but rather the shedding of the skin, with their saliva.

It's important to know that even hairless dog can shed,

and that will contain some degree of allergens.

And so there might be certain breeds

that people are less allergic to,

and that's all person-dependent.

So, for example, I have a cat allergy,

but there's certain cats that I do totally fine around,

and then there's other cats that

as soon as I walk into someone's home

and they have that cat, I'll start reacting.

And so it is not just by touching

or rubbing your face against the cat.

The dander is airborne,

so that can get into your eyes and nose

and into your airways

and start causing that IgE antibody to react

and produce that histamine, which causes the symptoms.

Frequent vacuuming is super important.

Also air purifiers.

And so for somebody that really wants a pet,

or, you know, usually it happens the other way around,

is that they've already gotten a pet

and they're not willing to get rid of it.

For those patients, then we usually do attempt

to do allergy immunotherapy

and see how well we can control their allergy symptoms.

We don't have a test to test

for particular breeds. Li: We wish we had.

Yeah, we wish we did, because if we did

we would have a huge, long line out the door

of people wanting to get tested for particular breeds

that they might be able to have in their home.

"Allergy shots don't work."

So, allergy shots are immunotherapy,

and allergy shots actually have a lot of data behind them,

and they've been used for years and years.

And we know that they do reduce the,

not only the symptoms that people experience,

but also the medications that people are on.

And then there's also the

allergy sublingual immunotherapy tablets

that are FDA approved.

So there's two different options,

and I just always like to mention that,

because some people are scared of shots.

I think there is this myth,

because people will misunderstand

allergy shots as medication.

Allergy shots are not medications.

They don't provide immediate symptomatic relief.

But see them as a way

to naturally desensitize your allergens

and to naturally develop tolerance.

You will still have to take your allergy medication,

such as antihistamine or nasal spray,

at the beginning of allergy shots

to help you manage your allergy symptoms.

But over the long term, allergy shots do work

to achieve that natural tolerance.

"You can outgrow your seasonal allergies."

That is not true,

because with your immune system changing,

sometimes your symptom can get better or worse over time.

So there's no definite way

that you can outgrow your seasonal allergies.

Sometimes people might have moved

from the West Coast to the East Coast,

and all of a sudden they don't have

those seasonal symptoms that they used to.

So they might say that,

"Oh, I outgrew my seasonal allergies,"

but it's really that they moved

and that they're not exposed to the same pollens

that they were when they were younger.

The most frequent symptoms that we see

are symptoms of the eyes.

For example, itchy, watery eyes.

The nose can get congested.

You can have a runny nose, itchy nose.

You can have a sore throat from postnasal drip.

And you can also have coughing, wheezing,

shortness of breath if you have allergic asthma.

Currently the closest cure we have for seasonal allergies

is called allergy immunotherapy.

I think the important thing to remember with immunotherapy

is that you have to be ready and committed for it.

For allergy shots, you will need to go

into the allergist's office weekly

for six to nine months,

and then it goes to monthly.

And we would say that you should continue your therapy

for at least three to five years for it to be effective.

And then for the sublingual immunotherapy tablets,

it depends on which tablet you're going to start.

For dust mite immunotherapy tablets, for example,

you have to take it daily.

And we would also recommend that you take them daily

for at least three to five years

in order to get the full benefit from them.

"You can cure your allergies."

So, we can't cure environmental

or food allergies at this time.

We've come pretty close to environmental allergies,

but the reason is, is that we haven't figured out

how to definitively change the immune system's reaction

to environmental allergens or to food allergens.

Our environment doesn't stay the same all the time.

So with new exposure in our environment,

our immune system is constantly adapting

to the new triggers in the environment.

So we can develop new allergies

even if we "cure" the old allergies.

That's why I don't like to use the word "cure,"

because you can always develop new allergy symptoms

after going through immunotherapy.

Gupta: So, once we have the allergy test results,