Two Anchorage physician assistants have spent seven years gathering and analyzing pollen specimens to keep Alaskans informed. Their data shows this season has been particularly bad.
Physician assistant Bryan Farthing with the Allergy, Asthma and Immunology Center of Alaska changed slides in a Burkard trap, used to sample airborne particles such as fungus spores and pollens, on a rooftop at Providence Alaska Medical Center on Thursday, May 26, 2022.
A combination of high birch and poplar pollen counts has led to a high number of patients showing up at their clinic with miserable symptoms, including nasal congestion, itchy ears, itchy throats, “and more than usual compared to the last couple years is just lots and lots and lots of eye itching this year,” Farthing said.
“We’ve worked with some other professionals in the state who have hypothesized that sometimes the winter freeze thaw cycles plays a role in pollination,” he said. “So we hypothesize that maybe climate change is having an effect.” According to Farthing, the process of setting the trap for the pollen, preparing the slides, counting and identifying the pollen they see, plugging those numbers into a spreadsheet that can give pollen estimates andon the clinic’s website takes about 45 minutes to an hour — a process that Kingston and Farthing complete three times a week.
“Some pollen comes off the tree and goes straight down, but the rest of it kind of goes up, gets into the atmosphere, and mixes up like a washing machine,” Farthing said, explaining that pollen can travel hundreds of miles a day. “And then it kind of floats. And it’s catching what would be the average.”Particles captured during a 24 hour period are visible on a slide using a Burkard trap on Thursday, May 26, 2022.
Patients can typically experience allergy symptoms when pollen counts reach as little as 7 grains per cubic meter, he said. Anything above 100 is considered high.
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