The last time I was in Japan at the peak of cherry blossom season I suddenly started feeling like my head was being squeezed in a pressure chamber. I thought I was coming down with the flu, but didn’t have any other symptoms. Then I suddenly remembered all the pollen-blocking masks and other items I’d seen in the convenience stores… did I have allergies? I normally didn’t back home.
And as it turned out, spring in Japan is notorious for hayfever due to the high number of cedar and cypress trees that were planted for industry after WWII, but left unmanaged after lumber supply was outsourced from other countries. They now release [massive amounts](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/02/13/national/hay-fever-japan-season/) of pollen from February to April, affecting a huge amount of the population.
The weird thing was that I’d been to Japan in the late spring before and was fine that time. Apparently, it’s a common occurrence for first-time visitors who haven’t been exposed to the pollen yet to not be affected, but then develop allergies during subsequent seasons. You can view a report [here](https://tenki.jp/pollen/expectation/) (Japanese) which says that levels are likely peaking in the Tokyo and Osaka area from now until early/mid-April.
If you’re coming to Japan soon and know you suffer from allergies, make sure you come prepared with an N95, eye wash, and/or antihistamines.
[More info.](https://www.realestate-tokyo.com/living-in-tokyo/japan-medical/hay-fever/)
5 comments
I was just in Japan for a few weeks, and I got sick…slight cough, and lost voice, no other symptoms…and my wife, nothing…her friend suggested that it might’ve been from the pollen, which as you stated, is very bad right now over there.
Having influenza is usually a wildly different experience than “hayfever” also known as common, seasonal allergies. If you have any of serious cough, fever, fatigue, chills, muscle aches, etc or have that general malaise/sickness feeling it’s not allergies and please get tested for COVID.
I am having huge allergies right now. Nose is either runny and ichy or closed off. So yea it’s quite heavy here.
That doesn’t sound very hay fever.
Hay fever is usually just a runny nose, sneezing, itchy eyes.
And, depending on the person, a slight fever.
If you have normal hay fever, you don’t need to be afraid because you can get medicines to prevent it cheaply at the drugstore.
Also, elderly people (over 80 years old or so) do not get it.
Over a few decades I’ve had two or three extremely tough allergy seasons here. Nobody else in my family were affected. Some antihistamines helped, especially 10mg of Loratadine. Japanese eye drops were useless. Luckily, I traveled in my job and often left the country for a few weeks when things got bad. I suffered no allergies in the US, despite the fact that I was from a hay production area. The suffering in the bad years was horrible. Couldn’t sleep or maintain for even a few minutes without sneezing and blowing my nose.