No freedom from allergies in summer

Will Oremus

Friday, July 18, 2003 | 10:25 a.m.

Spring is known to many allergy sufferers as the sniffliest season, but for Southern Nevadans, summers can also bring something to sneeze at.

Wednesday's rains cleansed the air of pesky pollutants such as ozone and dust, bringing relief to throats and lungs across the region. But Dr. Michael Braunstein, an allergy specialist, said clean air doesn't cure everyone -- summer sneezing fits are more likely to happen indoors than outdoors.

"This time of year, I'll tell you, it's mostly allergies that are in their house," Braunstein said. "It's people who are allergic to cats and dogs."

Braunstein said that sitting under a cold air-conditioning vent can also cause allergy-like symptoms for those who suffer from vaso-motor rhinitis.

"The inside of the nose swells up and secretes more fluid," he explained. "It's very common. A lot of what people think are allergies are not real allergies."

That's especially true in the summer, when counts for pollen and ragweed, the most common outdoor allergens, are low.

But Femi Durosinmi, air quality monitoring supervisor for Clark County, said that summer is the worst season for ground-level ozone, a pollutant that heightens many people's sensitivity to other allergens.

"Ozone is a big one right now," Durosinmi said. "In the last couple of weeks, if you look at the temperature in the valley, it's extremely high: 110 to 115 degrees consistently."

That heat facilitates the reaction between oxygen and man-made pollutants that creates ground-level ozone.

"It makes you not feel like you're breathing so good," Braunstein said. "It's kind of like cigarette smoke ... it can irritate your lungs."

Though Wednesday's thunderstorms brought only a fraction of an inch of rain to most parts of the Las Vegas Valley, local air quality experts welcomed the moisture as a respite from the pollutants that had been collecting in the dry heat.

"I'm delighted that the rain is coming because that will help the ozone and the dust," Susan Selby, assistant air quality director for Clark County, said shortly before the first drops hit the ground Wednesday.

Selby said ground-level ozone and fine dust particulates are the two main threats to Southern Nevada's air quality in the summer months.

"(The storm) basically clears the air," she said.

That should be good news for those who suffer from lung ailments such as bronchitis or asthma. The dust in the air had reached unhealthy levels in some areas of Southern Nevada just before Wednesday's storms came through.

"The reason why there's a (health) standard for it is that they get down in the lungs and then don't come back out," Selby said.

"Our two main culprits for dust are construction and disturbed vacant land, people driving on it," she said. "If there has been rain, that basically stabilizes and creates a crust, and dust doesn't blow off of it unless it's really windy."