Allergic rhinitis, also known as allergic rhinitis, is an allergic disease of the nasal mucosa and is one of the most common diseases in otolaryngology. According to the data published by WHO this year, there are about 500 million people worldwide suffering from this disease. In 2007, China published the epidemiological survey data of 11 central cities in China, and the prevalence rate of adults ranged from 9% to 24.6%, with an average of 11.2%. The prevalence rate in children in Guangzhou, Beijing and Wuhan ranges from 4-10%. Allergic rhinitis is a disease in which allergic people have a series of immune reactions after being exposed to allergenic allergens, resulting in edema of the nasal mucosa and a chronic inflammatory response of the nasal mucosa. Allergic constitution is genetically related, usually due to heredity. Most patients with allergic rhinitis have a family history of allergies, but in recent years, due to the accelerated industrialization and increased atmospheric pollution, some people who were originally non-allergic have evolved into allergic. What are the symptoms of allergic rhinitis? Allergic rhinitis is divided into two categories: perennial and seasonal. The former basically has symptoms of varying severity throughout the year: the latter, also known as hay fever, has a fixed season (spring or summer/fall) and is called spring hay fever (mainly caused by tree pollen) and summer/fall hay fever (mainly caused by grass and fen pollen), respectively. Allergic rhinitis has four typical symptoms, namely itchy nose, sneezing, runny nose and nasal congestion. Itchy nasal sensation is mild, but when it is severe, it is unbearable and requires rubbing the nose from time to time, and there is continuous sneezing, often several or a dozen in a row, accompanied by a large amount of clear watery nasal discharge, and in severe cases, the nasal blockage can be intermittent or continuous, unilateral or bilateral. Some patients have hyposmia or absence of smell. Children with nasal itching often make “ghostly faces” from time to time, and often involuntarily push the tip of the nose upward with the palm of their hands to improve the nasal blockage, Long-term “dementia”-like appearance may appear; in addition, nasal blockage can cause obstruction of facial venous return, bilateral lower eyelid skin coloration, forming dark circles. The disease may also be accompanied by general discomfort, such as fatigue, a feeling of heaviness in the head, etc. How to distinguish allergic rhinitis from cold? Whether you have a cold or allergic rhinitis, you can make a preliminary judgment from the following four aspects: 1. the number of sneezes. Generally speaking, although the cold will sneeze, but the number of times is not much, much less a dozen or even dozens of continuous sneezing, while one of the symptoms of allergic rhinitis is continuous sneezing. 2. Itchy nose. When you have a cold, your nose is not very itchy and nasal congestion is more common. But if you have allergic rhinitis, your nose and throat will be itchy, and even your eyes and cheeks will be itchy. 3. Runny nose. At the beginning of a cold, there will be a clear runny nose, but the amount is usually not much. Allergic rhinitis is the opposite, patients will sneeze and run a lot of nasal mucus at the same time. 4. Other discomforts. Colds are caused by a decrease in the body’s immunity and the invasion of viruses or bacteria leading to respiratory tract infections. Therefore, the cold is accompanied by some systemic symptoms, such as dizziness, headache, general weakness, muscle aches and pains, etc. In contrast, allergic rhinitis attacks do not present the above systemic symptoms. What are the risks of allergic rhinitis? Although allergic rhinitis does not cause death, it can significantly affect the patient’s quality of life, such as affecting sleep, leading to reduced work efficiency; affecting the memory of school children, causing problems and inconvenience to social activities and entertainment. The nasal symptoms often make the patient agitated and can even cause psychological disorders. If treatment is delayed or improperly treated, a number of comorbidities may occur, the most important and common of which is asthma. According to statistics, about l/3 of allergic rhinitis patients are combined with asthma, and more asthma patients are combined with allergic rhinitis, accounting for about 3/4, so they are closely related. Allergic rhinitis often occurs before asthma, so it is said that allergic rhinitis is a risk factor for the development of asthma. In addition to asthma, allergic rhinitis can be complicated by sinusitis, otitis media, allergic pharyngitis, nasal polyps, and olfactory disorders. How to treat allergic rhinitis? 1. Avoid contact with allergic allergens that have been clearly identified, should try to avoid contact with them. Patients with hay fever should try to go out less during the pollen dispersal season. Those allergic to fungi and room dust should have indoor ventilation, dryness, etc. Those who are allergic to animal dander and feathers should avoid contact with animals, birds, etc. 2.Medication includes nasal drops such as ephedrine, nasal spray such as coleus, oral medication such as loratadine, etc. 3.Specific immunotherapy is mainly for patients with clear allergens such as allergy to pollen and dust mites, and the route of administration of sublingual allergen vaccine has been found to be reliable and safe. 4, other therapies such as submucosal resection of the nasal turbinates, laser, radiofrequency, etc., need to be strictly selected for the indication of allergic rhinitis can be cured? This question is of great concern to the majority of patients, to answer this question must first be clear: the onset of allergic rhinitis depends on the patient’s allergic constitution and the presence of allergens in the environment, both of which are indispensable. Allergies are genetically related and the current level of medicine cannot change the allergic body into a non-allergic body, so it is difficult to cure allergic rhinitis from this point of view. However, it is difficult to avoid allergens by avoiding contact with allergens (due to the fact that allergens are many and hidden, not easy to find them all), correct and regular medication and necessary desensitization treatment can achieve good symptom control and no morbidity, from this point on allergic rhinitis is a good treatment effect. To achieve this requires the cooperation of the patient and the physician, especially to adhere to a longer period of medication, and to increase or decrease the dose or change the variety of treatment drugs according to the physician’s guidance. A special advice to the majority of patients is not to believe in “big slogans” and “small advertisements”. In recent years, some “big slogans” and “small advertisements” for the treatment of allergic rhinitis have been appearing around us one after another, taking advantage of the patients’ eagerness to get rid of the disease to achieve their purpose of earning black money. It is important to emphasize that no matter what drugs are used, including Western or Chinese medicine, it is not possible to cure rhinitis; the assessment of the effectiveness of the treatment should be objective and should be based on the results of both clinical symptoms and laboratory tests. Of course, changing the allergic body is not a dream, domestic and foreign research is being conducted in this area, as scientific research continues to progress, it is believed that in the future, gene therapy will be used clinically, it will be possible to change the allergic body into a non-allergic body, then even if the contact, inhalation or ingestion of the relevant allergens will not produce symptoms.