So NYC is one of the worst cities for allergies. Hmmm, I did not need a newspaper article to tell me that. My own personal experience points to that- growing up in NYC, I had a few asthma attacks. Then I moved to another city for college, and pronto! ashtma disappears. Then I move BACK to nyc and hello! asthma returns. The last two years I've been in this dirty crazy city I've had three asthma attacks! Now I know that is not as bad as some of my friends have it but it's still tough when each time I forgot to bring my inhaler. I had a slight attack last night when I went running; I kept wondering why I was so out of breath. Now I can blame it on the asthma and not the fact that I am out of shape=)
I went to another meeting today and chatted a bit with a colleague. She just recently graduated from college and told me that she, too, has had bad reactions ever since she moved to
the city. She went to have an allergy patch test the other day and the poor girl is really feeling it. Apparently, you can't bathe for 3 days when you have the patch! Supposedly it itches like a mother. Since she had the patch on her back, she kept surreptitiously rubbing herself against the chair, or wriggling in her shirt (which only made it worse) at the conference table. I love the girl to death, but she did look funny=)
Voila. Here is the evidence. Apparently, nyc jumped from 88 to 11 in terms of worst cities with spring allergies!
Some choice quotes:
- "...the hospitalization rate was... down 38% since 1995... despite this decline, this rate is twice the national rate...."
and, a disturbing observation,
- "....Persons living in low income neighborhoods were hospitalized for asthma at more than 3 times the rate as people in the most affluent neighborhoods..."
*Sigh*
Guess I have to go find an inhaler now...
No comments:
Post a Comment