Has anyone had hay fever in their eyes worsen on holiday?

[Slightyamusedandsilly]

We've just been on hol in the UK and I had an unusual health experience.

I get hay fever but it's mild. I can cope with it. I've lived around the country and it's not ever really been any different. Usually my HF takes the form of being bunged up at night and having sinusy headaches.

However, while we were away I had a horrible time with my eyes. In the daytime they were sort of OK, but in the afternoon would get a bit itchy. In the night, they watered none stop and gradually got more puffy, itchy and sore, to the point where it was so severe it woke me up. In the morning, I cleaned them carefully with cold water and they would gradually calm down. (We were staying in a rural place, but not much more so than where we live.)

I'm home now and slowly, normal service is resuming.

Has anyone ever experienced this? I assume that it WAS HF?

Did the place where you were have higher air pollution? I suffer terribly in places where a lot of coal, wood or charcoal is burned, or if there's a fairly dusty industry nearby (including some types of farming eg wheat harvest time)

It could have been very dusty, although it wasn't obvious. There were a lot of hay bales so crops were being harvested. But that isn't so different to where we live which is odd.

You were somewhere different where the pollen patterns are different. We have a lot of hayfever in this house: some to tree pollen, some to grass pollen, some to weed pollen and one poor bugger to all three. I am allergic to grass pollen and it mostly affects my eyes (I end up on three different antihistamines plus eyedrops just so I can see, and yes, under the advice of a doctor). It is very different when I am in different parts of the UK. You can look at pollen maps so you can really see.

Once my kids are done with school I have always said I am spending six weeks or so by the sea, ideally in Scotland. (end May - mid July).

@Venice93 yeah, I guess so. We're home now and I'm more or less OK again but my eyes haven't totally recovered yet.