Allergy issues with flowers?

I LOVE flowers - inside, outside, pictures, paintings, even thinking about them brings a smile to my face.
But, I find I am sensitive to some, allergic to others. For example lilies (not daylilies - a different family) - these are easy, remove the pollen-laden anthers, and no problem. On the other hand, on mille-flores like lilacs, that is not practical - so I place them outside the sliding glass doors on my 3 season porch and admire them behind glass.
My close family knows about this, and either buys me "expensive flowers" or unusual green plants.

If I receive a bouquet where I cannot easily remove or disarm the offenders, I take a few pictures, thank the giver, and rehome them.

I'm not aware of my having allergy issues with flowers. I really do love lilies and roses. Lilies are very toxic to cats with every part of the plant including the pollen, so I don't get Easter lilies anymore as I have 5 cats. I do have some nice artificial flowers that are fine. I also have orchids (phaelenopsis) and they are easy to grow, don't require typical soil and don't have fragrance. The blooms last a long time up to 3 months. Sometimes these are grown in sphagnum moss. As long as that doesn't get mildewed, I am fine. Orchids grown in bark are better for allergy avoidance, but you need to keep up with water when there isn't much to hold it around the roots. Orchids in bloom can usually be found at grocery stores fairly economically.

@jenniferhunter - have you found artificial flowers that look realistic? I've had some artificial plants, but not flowers. That might be a good idea for me to head off any allergic reactions.

@lisalucier Yes, I do have some nicer artificial roses and lilies that were more expensive that typical plastic flowers. The lilies are fabric and have a wire under each petal and can be shaped. I haven't shopped for any lately and have had these for years.

So does my sister - you actually have to touch them to tell that they are not real. She swishes them in warm soapy water, rinses and dries with her hair dryer to keep them freshd dust free.

Histaminic reactions cause sneezing, etc. designed to surround the irritant with mucous and then blast it away from the offended tissue (body) and into another tissue (Kleenex.) Problem solved - or should be.

Sometimes the body detects the mucous it sent to remove the irritant as another irritant - which it might be, sorta, until you blow your nose. Problem #2 solved. We hope.

Sometimes the body's immune system goes into hyperdrive or autoimmune response mode, and sees the minor irritation of the mucous it sent as another irritant and says, "Irritation alert! Send more mucous!"

Sneeze that out, nose itching and eyes watering by now, and the message becomes, "More irritation! More mucous! More mucous!"

Now you're in autoimmune response mode, with cytokenes carrying the messages, also known as a cytokene storm.

Once you know how the system works it's easier to combat it.

Asthmatics and allergy sufferers (and our conditions are exacerbated in LC) tend to produce too much mucous. N-acetyl cystiene or NAC for short, naturally regulates the body's mucous production. Cystreine is a protien the body makes all by itself that is insufficient in some people. NAC gets cysteine into the body orally and taken daily (600 mg capsules, one, maybe two daily) during pollen or allergy season keeps the excess mucous in check. It takes a while to absorb. It's not a relief agent - it's more like preparing the body to say, "We're ready" when the pollen-mucous attack hits.

Quercitin is a B vitamin that boosts up the body's ability to fight off allergins - not limited to just pollens. NOW labs makes a good one - 800 mg capsules with bromelain.

Preventatives are better than pills - but if somebody gives you a boquet that sends you into a fit, get rid of it and air out the house. And if you need a pill or a spray, don't wait - treat it aggtressively right up front and you'll wind up feeling better quicker and taking fewer pills per episode.
A good antihistamine, with no rebound effect, jitters, or nosebleeds: Cetrizine (antihistamine tablet)

Nasal spray that doesn't turn your nasal tissue into a parched, cracked, and bleeding mess: Xlear (nasal spray - natural ingredient based.)

Stay way up on your B-complex (especially B12, B6, and B3) and C vitamins, and watch the dairy and wheat intake. Eliminate dairy (except good butter) and all wheat for about a month to let your body heal - then re-introduce "this is a test" amounts later. If allergies flare up, you know what to do...

Here's how it orks: One part of the immune system is connectede to all the others. When I ate a lot of ice cream in the summer (love good ice cream - or used to) my nose would go haywire. When I quit, the nose got better. Or if I got a snootful of pollen and later ate some ice cream, it was good for a bronchial asthma attack.

If you've read this far I apologize for the long-windedness, but hope there's something of benefit here for you. I've had to become my own research team, caregiver, and advocate as the docs just want to run allergy tests to see if I'm allergic to what I told them I'm allargic to, and then prescribe nasal-passaage-destroying synthetic steroid sprays, etc. that cause further long-term damage. I've found natural preventative and theraputic approaches as listed aabove that have given me more relief, now, sixty years later, than I've obtained previously. I hope it shortens the path to relief and recovery for you.

Good luck, and God bless.

@chuckstran I know from experience that NAC does thin mucous so it is more easily expelled. I should go back to using it. I like ice cream too and good butter. Thanks for your thorough and thoughtful post.

Hello Jennifer,

Thanks for your reply and I don't mean to be priggish, but NAC doesn't thin mucous so it can be expelled; NAC is the only form of cysteine that can be absorbed orally. It breaks down and the cysteine supplements the body's own production of the protien, cysteine, which is the precursor to glutathione, which moderates the production of mucous. In other words, NAC doesn't thin the mucous that's there - it adjusts the body's factory to make less of it.

The one you want for thinning mucous so it can be expelled is guiafenensin, which can be had as a syrup that somewhat gets to the affected tissues (Robitussin) or tablet which works from the bloodstream (Mucinex.)

If I'm all-of-a-sudden plugged up, say, at nighttime, I'll drink a light dose of the syrup after I take a tablet. I want that syrup to stay in my throat where it can do some immediate damage control, with the follow-up in my bloodstream to keep things clear until morning.

One 600 mg cap of NAC at night is part of the bedtime ritual.

Again, not wanting to nit-pick, but the functions of these remedies are not the same. Someone taking NAC in order to ease their unproductive coughing would likely be disppointed and then dismiss it when its desired effects are called for.

Thanks for your response. Hopefully we'll both be able to get more word out to more people dealing with asthma and LC, help them become more productive by providing information to help ease their pain.