When you think of allergy symptoms, you typically think of a runny nose, itchy eyes and uncontrollable sneezing first. However, you may be overlooking tiredness or exhaustion. It’s quite common for allergies to cause you to feel tired. When this occurs, it’s known as allergy fatigue. Allergy fatigue is more than just feeling tired, although that is part of it. It encompasses sleepiness, profound exhaustion, and brain fog, which can significantly impact your daily life.
Why Do Allergies Cause Tiredness?
The body fights off allergens as if they were a foreign invader, like a virus or bacteria, which causes an allergic reaction. The effort your body extends in this effort uses a lot of your energy. In short, your body fights off the allergens so intensely that it zaps your energy and makes you feel tired.
Moreover, the chemicals your body releases to fight the allergen (called histamines) can affect your sleep cycle, causing your body to not get the restful sleep it needs to recharge. On top of that, histamines cause inflammation, which leads to those more common allergy symptoms like nasal congestion and postnasal drip, which might keep you up at night. This interrupted sleep will make you tired and groggy the next day.
What Are Symptoms of Allergy Fatigue?
As stated before, allergy fatigue is more than just feeling tired. That lack of energy causes your brain to feel fuzzy and unfocused, a condition often referred to as brain fog. This may feel like confusion, difficulty concentrating, trouble with memory and poor performance at work or school.
How Can I Manage Allergy Fatigue?
A good first step in managing allergy fatigue is improving your sleep cycle to get the rest your body needs. Ensure your bedroom is allergen-free by washing and changing the bed sheets, closing the window and using an air purifier. You could also investigate hypoallergenic pillows. This will relieve you of the allergy symptoms.
Allergy medications are also highly effective. Antihistamines like Zyrtec or Benadryl will decrease your histamine count, helping to mitigate the effects of histamines discussed earlier.
If you’ve tried over-the-counter medications and still are plagued by allergy symptoms and fatigue, consider immunotherapy, a treatment that builds tolerance in the body to an allergen, which decreases the body’s reaction to the allergen going forward. This treatment will lessen your allergies over time. Call Lakelands ENT today to find out more.
