Is Your Workplace Triggering Your Allergy Symptoms?

Is Your Workplace Triggering Your Allergy Symptoms?

Fresno is a gorgeous region with plenty of sun, spacious parks, and bustling commercial districts. It’s also one of the nation’s “Allergy Capitals,” appearing in the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America’s annual report.

While San Diego is California’s highest-ranking Allergy Capital, Fresno is in the nation’s top 100 and 10th in California. If you live or work in Fresno and deal with year-round or seasonal allergies, it’s no doubt frustrating. 

It’s human to blame the outdoors – almond trees, agricultural dust, smog – for allergies, but many spend 40 hours a week or more in an office and even more time at home inside. Have you considered that it could be your workplace that’s triggering your allergies?

Why Fresno Is a Pollen Trap

You walk into your office, and the air feels heavy. Each breath seems to take a bit more effort. This is often tied to the area’s geography and greenery, which create a pollen trap.

1. The Atmospheric Temperature Inversion Effect

The San Joaquin Valley is nestled between the Coastal Ranges to the west and the Sierra Nevadas to the east. Rising 3,849 feet (Coastal Ranges-Diablo Range) and 12,936 feet (Sierra Nevadas-Muriel Peak), the mountains are beautiful backdrops to Fresno’s average elevation of 308 feet.

With the much lower valley floor and the higher mountain slopes, a topographic bowl forms. It’s that bowl that establishes the atmospheric temperature inversion. Typically, warm air rises and carries away pollutants with it. The inversion layer messes that up by trapping cooler air near the ground under warmer air. 

With cold air trapped under the warmer layer, pollen, vehicle emissions, factory emissions, agricultural dust, and wildfire smoke have nowhere to go. The stagnant air becomes a problem because it’s high in particulate matter, making it feel heavier to breathe.

2. Local Greenery

Another problem is the area’s greenery. It gets hot, and one of the best ways to combat the sun’s intense rays is to add shade trees. The best shade trees are often high pollen contributors. Mulberry, Oak, and Sycamore trees are abundant in the area and produce large amounts of tree pollen.

Male trees are often favored in urban settings because they don’t produce seeds or fruit. They make less of a mess on streets, paths, and sidewalks. What they do produce, however, is an abundance of pollen to help the female trees grow their crops.

As Fresno’s weather is ideal for a long growing season, pollination lasts longer. Instead of a few weeks of pollen spikes, it can last for months and months.

3. The Agricultural Industry

More than 350 crops are grown in Fresno County. Almonds, grapes, peaches, pistachios, and tomatoes are prevalent. This means you have the pollen from these different plants. Plus, the dust from the tilled, dry soil and any fertilizers that boost soil nutrients.

There’s another aspect to the air quality. Field preparations, planting, and harvesting require a lot of farm equipment and trucks for transportation to factories and warehouses. Diesel and gas emissions become an additional problem.

4. Office Infiltration

All the particulate matter and pollution trapped in Fresno’s outdoor spaces tend to settle closer to the ground. Most office buildings use AC to keep office equipment and employees cool enough to function properly. 

An AC system pulls in outside air to cool it and releases the hot air collected inside. Each time air is drawn from outside, it can draw allergens into your office building’s ductwork. Air filters help remove these irritants, but filters only do so much and need to be changed regularly.

The Problem Areas at Work

Once you’re at work, you have several problem areas that are putting you in contact with the allergens you were trying to avoid.

1. Co-Workers and Visitors

You and everyone else who enters the office space come inside with pollen on their clothing. This pollen falls off during the day and remains in your workplace. Even opening and closing an entry door allows pollen in.

2. Carpeting

Carpeted floors are often quieter than wood or tile. Carpets also capture dust, pollen, and skin cells. If you work in a pet-friendly building, there’s also pet dander building up in the carpet fibers. 

Every time someone walks past your office or desk, the microscopic allergens in the carpet are stirred up. Those particles land on surfaces like your chair and desk, putting them close to your face.

3. HVAC Systems

A heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system keeps an office building at the desired temperature. Air is meant to get circulated, passing through a filter to remove particulate matter, pollen, hair/dander, and germs. Not all filters are effective in capturing everything. Cheaper filters may be affordable, but they let a lot escape into the ducts.

The other problem involves your office’s AC system. Fresno’s weather gets hot, so AC systems run constantly. If there’s a problem with a condensate line, water builds up in the condensate pan. This moisture inspires mold and mildew growth.

As mold and mildew grow, they enter the ducts. From there, it goes into the air you’re breathing all day long.

4. Office Plants

Office plants add life to a dull office space. However, wet soil is prime for mold growth. Switching to fabric or plastic plants may seem safer, but dust and other pollens collect on the larger leaves of plants like a fiddle leaf fern.

5. Office Cleaning

When the cleaning crew comes in, are they using products with VOCs that trigger your allergies? Hundreds of cleaning products contain unsafe levels of these organic chemicals, adding to indoor air pollution.

The American Lung Association reports that VOC concentrations in office buildings can be up to 10 times higher than outdoors. When you’re in an office teeming with VOCs, it can be very hard to breathe easily.

Strategies You Can Use to Ease Symptoms

You can’t quit your job, so what can you do to ease your allergy symptoms? Start by talking to your management. Severe allergies can be a qualifying condition for the Americans with Disabilities Act. If they substantially limit your productivity at work, you should ask for reasonable accommodations.

Ask to be provided with a HEPA air purifier to reduce particulate matter in your office. 

Choose an office with wood or tile floors and remove fabric curtains or blinds.

Drink plenty of water to help keep mucus flowing and filter out allergens.

Make your coworkers aware of your severe allergies so they know not to crack a window in your immediate area.

Request an office that’s away from the flow of guests and employees. 

See if cleaners could use allergy-friendly, low- or no-VOC products.

Make an appointment with Dr. Sabry at Premium Allergy & Respiratory Center. She’s a board-certified allergist in Fresno who provides effective treatments that end severe allergy symptoms. Allergy shots or sublingual allergy treatments end the severity of your allergies. Both help your body learn to respond appropriately to allergens.