Allergy sufferers know it's bad out there.

Byline: Mark Baker The Register-Guard

Bless you.

If you've been hearing that often this week, maybe you, like many in this area, suffer from springtime allergies or hay fever.

The grass pollen count in Eugene Tuesday was 690, the highest of the year so far, according to the appropriately named Web site www.imasneezer.com, run by Oregon Allergy Associates.

Although a 690 count would be off the charts just about anywhere else in the country, and anything above 200 is considered "very high" by the National Allergy Bureau, it's "pretty typical this time of year" for the Willamette Valley, said Dr. Kraig Jacobson, medical director of the Allergy and Asthma Research Group, the research arm of Oregon Allergy Associates in Eugene.

We are, after all, just downwind of Linn County, "The Grass Seed Capitol of the World."

A score of 690 represents the number of pollen particles measured in a one-meter-square area, Jacobson said. Counts are taken at 7:45 a.m. and are for the previous 24 hours of air sampling, so Tuesday's count reflected conditions between 7:45 a.m. Monday and 7:45 a.m. Tuesday, he said.

The Oregon Allergy Associates' office at 1488 Oak St. is the only National Allergy Bureau-certified pollen counting station in Oregon, and one of 78 in the United States, according to the American Academy of Allergy Asthma & Immunology Web site.

The pollen is collected using a Burkard air sampler located on the office's second story. A vacuum pump pulls air through a small port that is directed into the wind. The air lands on a greased microscope slide inside the air sampler's cylinder.

Pollen levels in the area began to climb in mid-May, topping 100 for the first time on May 28 with a count of 178, climbing to 583 on May 31, then dropping with the rain and thunderstorms of the first week of June, before spiking again Tuesday, Jacobson said.

Counts measuring be tween 20 and 199 are considered "high" by the NAB.

But during peak grass-pollen allergy season here, counts of between 600 and 1,000 are not uncommon, Jacobson said.

The record since his office began doing them is 1,600, measured in June 2003 at the fire station in Coburg, taken when the research group was doing a study and had multiple pollen-counting stations set up in the area, he said.

"We always take the crown for the highest pollen counts in the world," Jacobson said. Most NAB-certified stations around the country rarely have counts over 200, he said.

So what can allergy sufferers do about it short of heading to the coast or the mountains?

"The main thing is keeping indoors and places that are air-conditioned and have good filtration," Jacobson said.

As for medications, using only one antihistamine likely doesn't cut it in this part of the world, Jacobson said. It's not uncommon for allergy sufferers here to use several medications at once, he said. Allergy shots are an option, but to be effective they must be done starting twice weekly, Jacobson said.

"We are working on new things," Jacobson said.

One is the development of a small wafer that sufferers would put under their tongue daily beginning in December and up until the start of the allergy season in May, he said.

"We are probably a couple of years away from any option like that being approved in the United States," Jacobson said.

POLLEN COUNTS

Tuesday was the highest pollen count of the year so far, according to Eugene's Oregon Allergy Associates. Here are the numbers for the past 10 days. A reading of more than 200 is considered very high.

May 31: 583

June 1: 200

June 2: 186

June 3: 376

June 4: 256

June 5: 10

June 6: 9

June 7: 22

June 8: 16

June 9: 690