Allergy season is in full force

If you suffer from season allergies local experts say wearing a mask might protect you from more than just Covid-19.

The faithful, and the role the vaccine is playing.

That's tonight at 6:30 right here on 41nbc.

Allergy season is in full force already, but you might not feel the same effects you usually do.

41nbc's peyton lewis spoke to a local allergist about how the pandemic is impacting seasonal allergies.

If you suffer from seasonal allergies local experts say wearing a mask might protect you from more than just covid-19.

"it will help your allergies to an extent."

Middle georgia is already seeing a high pollen count this year for the start of spring.

We've hit a four year high in tree pollen again, and dr. jeffrey langford, an allergist in macon, says his office is seeing an increase in patients.

"spring is kind of busy, and we can kind of see our call volume up as people with alergies get itchy, sneezy, stuffy, and drippy with the pollen flairing then they tend to give us a call."

Dr. langford says his patients aren't experiencing as severe symptoms as they have in year's past, and he's attributing this to masks.

"you're going to catch pollen with any mask you wear and if the pollen isn't making it into your airways you're going to have fewer symptoms."

A tight fabric mask or n-95 can catch most pollen.

Dr. langford says a clean mask in combination with an allergy medicine can get patients feeling completely normal.

"with allergies everyone reacts differently and with covid everyone reacts differently and allergies and covid do share a lot of similar sympotms and so there are 2 things to note if you start to feel ill.

The first -- where you've travelled recently, and the second-- who you've interacted with."

Michael hokanson from the north central health district says if your typical allergy symptoms don't feel right, get a covid test just in case.

"the pandemic is still ongoing.

C1 3 b13 if you think that you might have covid you do need to seek out a test, that's the only way to know the health department encourages anyone experiencing symptoms like covid-19 to get tested to rule