motorcycles: Riding with Allergies

h0gwash (

h0gwash) wrote in

motorcycles,
@ 2008-03-07 09:25:00

Riding with Allergies

Here in California's Central Valley the sun is out, weather is warm and all the flowers are starting to bloom. The green hillsides are alive with nature's quilt of blossoms.

But there is a dark side to this annual orgy of pollenation. My body is convinced some kinds of plant sperm is a deadly virus and my plegm starts a-flowin -and flowin, and flowin. Riding around on a motorcycle hither and yon doesn't help any. I'm starting to wear a bandana over the mouth, but was wondering what others do to combat allergies while riding.

EDIT: I wear a full face helmet with the shield down while moving.

(Post a new comment)

	lucindrielle 2008-03-07 05:43 pm UTC (link)
	I don't experience any allergy symptoms while wearing a helmet. Your post doesn't make it clear if you do so, or not, but I find that it keeps most of the gunk from getting up your nose. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	polyanarch 2008-03-07 05:46 pm UTC (link)
	I've found the same thing to be true. I try and keep my faceshield closed at all times when I am moving, and only crack it when it becomes absolutely necessary to keep fogging at bay. This keeps most of the crap out of the helmet, and protects the eyes against flying debris and bugs. I suffer from allergies and runny eyes MORE when I'm driving the cage. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	h0gwash 2008-03-07 06:07 pm UTC (link)
	I've edited the post to show I use a full face helmet and crack it when stopped at lights. I wonder if I can get one of those face mask things without those horrible skull/dog faces. (Reply to this) (Parent)

polyanarch
2008-03-07 05:49 pm UTC (link)

I've found that when I have contaminated atmosphere in my helmet/face area that the easiest & best way to clear it is to open the faceshield and turn my head. The wind, at anything over walking pace, is more than sufficient to clear that small area. Sometimes it takes doing at both sides to fully clear out all the nasties that got in.

Of course, this doesn't help when the entire air is bad and full of pollen/crap but nothing is going to help with that until you can move out of the area and/or take some antihistamines.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	h0gwash 2008-03-07 06:01 pm UTC (link)
	Maybe I'll have to resort to drugs. I don't much like the idea thinking I'll develop resistance, but I can use them maybe on only the worst days. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	The only place I have allergies todomy 2008-03-07 06:27 pm UTC (link)
	is the Greater DC Baltimore area. Dunno what it is around here, but eeeeek. I tried the immunity route, but I finally gave in. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	polyanarch 2008-03-07 07:17 pm UTC (link)
	Are you symptoms better or worse when riding as apposed to just walking around in pollen air? (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	h0gwash 2008-03-07 07:34 pm UTC (link)
	That's a good question. My recollection is that it is worse after I've ridden around some. My house is far from airtight, and we don't use air conditioning so no filter. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

polyanarch
2008-03-07 08:19 pm UTC (link)

I find my helmet to be better sealed than the inside of my cage from the outside air. It certainly is easier to evacute and clear once something yucky like pollen gets in. The pollen isn't everywhere, if you have not begun to react heavily then sooner or later you will come into an area with better air and be able to exchange the yucky stuff in your helmet with an open-visored head-twist. If the air is so bad that you are getting a bad reaction, there really isn't much you can do at that point but to suppress the reaction with an anti-histamine since the histamine reaction has already begun in your head/face/eyes/nasal area.

But I wouldn't "blame" it on the motorcycle. In my experience, it is just as bad on foot or ~~on horseback~~ in the cage. But it DOES present much more of a danger on the bike as it is harder to rub it out/focus when your eyes tear up and you can't see and operating a motorcycle is significantly more dangerous even when you CAN see what is going on.

There were a few years where my issues were so bad that I would have to almost blindly pull off the road in my cage and stop until I could open my eyes again they were tearing/hurting so much. This almost never happened on the motorcycle. The worst car I ever had for this was my Dodge Neon. I don't think it had any viable air filtration whatsoever in the intake system and no way of shutting OFF the outside air as even the "recirculate" function on the A/C was ineffective at keeping pollen and bad air out of the cabin. It was a horrible design. I'll never buy another Dodge or even an american vehicle again after that lesson.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

	Simple todomy 2008-03-07 06:26 pm UTC (link)
	Claritin in a Peez dispenser. Normally, a storm trooper. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	Re: Simple h0gwash 2008-03-07 07:48 pm UTC (link)
	Yay drugs! (Reply to this) (Parent)

	tomatoe333 2008-03-07 06:52 pm UTC (link)
	My solution involves Allegra, Flo-Nase, and continuing allergy shot treatments from my allergist. Claritin does nothing for me, and if I take Benadryl, you don't want me anywhere near a motorcycle, car, or heavy machinery. I'll send a link to a dust mask That I found for an earlier thread, but I'm not sure how well it would do on airborne pollen. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	h0gwash 2008-03-07 07:40 pm UTC (link)
	Interesting! Does it come with an obnoxious HD logo on it? Kidding! (Reply to this) (Parent)

	malvino 2008-03-07 06:58 pm UTC (link)
	Eat local honey, just a teaspoonful a day. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	Does that work? motomuffin 2008-03-07 07:02 pm UTC (link)
	I keep hearing that bit of wisdom, but I've yet to meet anyone for whom it has worked, or, really, anyone who has even tried it. I am a honey fanatic and probably eat at least that much a day, local and non, but have never suffered seasonal allergies, so that proves nothing either way. :-) (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Does that work? untied 2008-03-07 07:13 pm UTC (link)
	it works the same way other homeopathics work. allergic to clover/clover blossoms? eat local clover honey. it's like vaccinating yourself against allergens. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Does that work? malvino 2008-03-07 08:03 pm UTC (link)
	It's not homeopathy (which is quackery), eating honey doesn't give you the symptoms of hayfever. It's probably much more like a vaccination (which is solid medical science), although nobody will know until proper clinical trials are run to prove whether it works or not, why and then quantify doses and timescales. (Reply to this) (Parent)

Re: Does that work?

malvino
2008-03-07 07:37 pm UTC (link)

I know several people, everyone who's tried it including my Mum, and nobody that's tried it has not seen a big positive difference. I think it's what Terry Pratchett would call a substition; something everyone knows is true, but that most people don't believe it enough to try it (along with things like "don't pick it and it'll heal faster") as opposed to a superstition which we know are false, but many believe anyhow.

It's been known for centuries that honey cured hayfever and other things, but has been dismissed as an "unproven old wives' tale". It's still unproven as far as science is concerned, at least I'm not aware that there's been a proper clinical experiment done about it (because there's no money in selling local honey to local people), but that doesn't mean it's not true.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Does that work? h0gwash 2008-03-07 07:45 pm UTC (link)
	My other half has been pushing that on me, I've been kinda avoiding it because it's expensive. I sorta thought it takes years for the local pollen to affect your biology to make you 'immune.' (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

Re: Does that work?

malvino
2008-03-07 07:57 pm UTC (link)

I don't know how long it takes, although I'd have guessed a couple of months, but then unless your hayfever lasts a long time it's probably something you ave to have started before the start of the season each year instead of when you start getting problems.

I don't see that a daily slice of toast with honey can be as expensive as drugs though. Honey is generally pretty cheap, local honey by a small producer even more so because they generally do it for the hobby rather than the cash.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

Interesting!

motomuffin
2008-03-07 07:53 pm UTC (link)

I've always wondered what allergic motorcyclists do.

'Cause in the spring I like nothing better than to ride past orchards and get a big ol' snoot-full of FLOWERS BLOOMING. It smells SO GOOD. Especially apple blossoms. YUM.

And then I think, wow, it must blow some seriously huge chunks to be allergic to all this sticky floating yellow-green tree bukkake, especially when you're riding down the road and essentially blasting it straight into your sinuses.

And Benadryl knocks me on my ass. So I count myself lucky.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Interesting! malvino 2008-03-07 08:17 pm UTC (link)
	Yeah, I love the smell of wildflowers, no orchids round here, but when I lived in Spain the Orange and Almond trees were great at the right time of year. Although half of my family has bad hayfever I've never had a problem, although I eat honey just because I love it, mostly in hot chocolate (which may or may not be the reason why). (Reply to this) (Parent)

	Hay! lds 2008-03-08 04:54 pm UTC (link)
	I'm big on riding through horse-farm country out on the high plains right after they've cut the hay. I had a great ride last spring with that freshly-mown hay smell in my nose, gathering storm clouds and a few big drops of rain plopping on my visor, horses and colts nickering as they run for the barn behind white rail fences... (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Hay! polyanarch 2008-03-08 09:20 pm UTC (link)
	Stupid farmers leaving fresh-cut hay out in the fields before it rains. Now it will have to dry out for days before they can bail it or it will burn their barns down! (Reply to this) (Parent)

	sticky floating yellow-green tree bukkake polyanarch 2008-03-08 09:15 pm UTC (link)
	HEY! romperwebby has BANNED that word from motorcycles! I love it though. I can has vacuum now for keyboards. ROTFLMFAO! (Reply to this) (Parent)

Re: Does that work?

jedipussytricks
2008-03-11 08:22 pm UTC (link)

I did a little research on the honey thing not long ago anyway, and though I had been a believer before and was looking for evidence that it worked, I ended up convincing myself that it doesn't.

What I found was that one study had been done, and unfortunately it was not of suitable size to be very convincing, nor could I find enough information on the study to convince anyone even if it had been a convincing study. That said, it showed no difference between three groups: people using local non-pasteurized honey, people using national pasteurized honey, and people using honey-flavored corn syrup.

What convinced me against the honey cure even more, though, was reading that what people are allergic to is generally tree pollens--the light, dust-like pollens that float through the air. These pollens are not spread by bees. Plants that require bee pollination have sticky pollens so they will stick to the bees. This stickiness means that they are heavy and therefore don't float through the air, so if you were allergic to them you'd pretty much have to stick a flower (or a bee?) up your nose to have a reaction. On top of that, not much pollen ends up in the honey anyway, which is made from nectar.

It would be nice to have a big, scientific study to really prove it one way or the other, but I'm pretty unconvinced. In the sense that I'd been convinced, and my convincedness has been "unned."

I am blessed not to have allergies, but my boyfriend does. When the time and place is right (wrong?) for allergies, he takes a Claratin every day before bed so that the slight sleepiness he gets from it doesn't matter, but the anti-histamine effect still lasts through the next day. I know someone here said Claratin doesn't work for them, but for those it does work for, perhaps that strategy will be helpful if they too find it makes them a little "off" for a few hours.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

Re: Does that work?

malvino
2008-03-11 08:43 pm UTC (link)

That nobody's done a scientific study of it doesn't trouble me at all, as far as I know nobody's even done a scientific study to show smoking pot makes you prone to giggling, but personal experience has persuaded me it's true, and that if a study were ever done it would reflect that.

You've been convinced against it by conjecture as to how it works (if it does) which is then disproven by similar reasoning "it must be the pollen that makes consuming local honey protect from hayfever, but the pollen in honey isn't the pollen you're allergic to therefore it doesn't work".

The problem with this is that nobody sensible has even attempted to explain why honey prevents hayfever except in vague "could be this" terms, certainly not enough to prove it doesn't work in the same way. After all, it could be that there's some antibody from the bees themselves that goes into honey that boosts your immune system or something of that nature, making the connection to pollen entirely irrelevent. There is pollen in honey, but honey itself is nectar processed (through partial digestion) by bees, it's possible that honey free from pollen would work just as well.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

	Re: Does that work? volta 2008-03-07 10:18 pm UTC (link)
	I use a fair amount of honey, certainly more than a teaspoon a day, and still have trouble with arboreal bukkake triggering an allergic reaction. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Does that work? malvino 2008-03-11 08:44 pm UTC (link)
	Is it local honey? (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Does that work? volta 2008-03-11 09:41 pm UTC (link)
	That probably depends on your definition of local. I live just outside of Boston, most of my honey comes from NH and central/western MA. I prefer minimally processed honey, in part because it works much better for brewing, but mostly because it tastes better. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	untied 2008-03-07 07:15 pm UTC (link)
	i bet a million dollars the people suggesting a face shield aren't from here. you can be in a plastic BUBBLE and the valley will find a way to wreak havoc on your sinuses. sure, it's been beautiful, mid sixties, flip flop and t-shirt weather, with a touch of chill making evening sweaters and back yard fires enjoyable... but only if you've not built up an immunity to benedryl. (Reply to this)

vanilla_christ
2008-03-07 07:18 pm UTC (link)

Man I feel your pain. My allergies are a nightmare, and I do a lot of riding out in the country and around farms during the spring... and frequently with an open-face helmet. Not tried it with my closed-face yet, but my solutions for my own problem has been to use Zyrtec (get a prescription allergy pill, don't do Benadryl or any of that dogshit) and prescription anti-allergy eye drops. I make sure my goggles are on nice n' tight too!

Still gets to me a little bit, though. A wash-down of the face and eyes at rest stops helps a little, but it's always a chore no matter what I do.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	camper4lyfe 2008-03-07 07:51 pm UTC (link)
	Zyrtec is now available OTC. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	vanilla_christ 2008-03-07 08:17 pm UTC (link)
	Sure, but my fexofenadine pills are cheaper (and covered by insurance). Whatever works though... SZyrtec, Claritin, Clarinex, Allegra, FaceChopOffika - find the best pills and fall promptly in love with them. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	raptorck 2008-03-07 09:21 pm UTC (link)
	When you go with a bandana, or other nose/mouth covering, get it damp first. The water helps trap more of the pollen/particles. I learned this one during 9/11, and the damp cloth definitely led to somewhat cleaner air than the dry one. You will, of course, want to wash the everliving fuck out of it and dry it in a machine with a good lint trap to avoid post-ride agony. (Reply to this)

	litch 2008-03-07 09:47 pm UTC (link)
	before you ride: pseudophedrine (sudafed) works better than most of the more expensive name brands while your ride: hydrate and blow your nose any chance you get after you ride: get a saline rinse (or a netty pot) and flush out your sinuses (Reply to this)

roguerider
2008-03-07 11:51 pm UTC (link)

Besides all the flonase and honey and whatnot that I take, I actually stuff my nostrils with kleenex. I pack it in there. I guess it keeps pollen out, but more so it keeps my nose from running all over my face while riding. Not the sexiest solution ever, but hey. Picture the cliche of a hot chick swinging a leg off her bike, taking off her helmet and swinging her hair around, removing the bandana off of her face.....then blowing tissue plugs out of her nose. HOT.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	h0gwash 2008-03-08 07:20 pm UTC (link)
	How did you know I had a snot fetish?! Kidding. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	Is that a rose in your nose? polyanarch 2008-03-08 09:18 pm UTC (link)
	You may think it is funny, but it isnot! (Reply to this) (Parent)

	dasboese 2008-03-08 12:58 am UTC (link)
	Do it. You know you want to >:D (Reply to this) (Thread)

	Is that DOT-approved? polyanarch 2008-03-08 09:19 pm UTC (link)
	Maybe if the DOT does NOT approve it you can go slaughter all their younglings... (Reply to this) (Parent)

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