What is cedar fever and what can you do about it?

FOX 7 Discussion: What is cedar fever?

Many Central Texans have been muddling through cedar fever lately, but what exactly is it and what can people do to treat it? Allergist Dr. Ron Cox of Greater Austin Allergy sits down with FOX 7 Austin's John Krinjak to explain more.

AUSTIN, Texas - A lot of us have been enjoying the warm weather the past couple weeks, but for allergy sufferers, it's a bit of a different story, especially when it comes to cedar.

Many Central Texans have been muddling through cedar fever lately. Although it's around for flu season, cedar fever is neither a flu nor a virus. It is an allergic reaction to the pollen released by mountain cedar trees. The predominant species of mountain cedar in Texas is the Ashe juniper.

Austin allergist Dr. Ron Cox of Greater Austin Allergy sits down with FOX 7 Austin's John Krinjak to explain more about cedar fever and what to do about it.

JOHN KRINJAK: So I want to start with, what is cedar fever exactly? And why is it flaring up for so many people right now?

RON COX: Well, cedar fever comes from the juniper trees, which is kind of unique to the Central Texas area, and what's interesting about is it pollinates in December, January and February, where everything else is pretty much in the springtime, as far as the trees. And the issue of it, we have this beautiful weather now and people and people are discouraged to go outside because the cedar fever is knocking them down. And so what it is is a pollen that's unique to the area that causes all sorts of symptoms like the itchy, runny, sneezing, but also causes stuffy and a little bit of fatigue. And unique to cedar is it can actually cause a fever as well.

JOHN KRINJAK: What are some things people can do to treat or at least mitigate the symptoms?

RON COX: So one of the biggest things you can do is stay indoors. But nobody wants to do that, and you have to get out when it's beautiful like this. So things you can do is go out later in the evening. You can use saline irrigation to rinse all the pollen out of your sinuses after you've been out for extended periods of time. You can also use systane ultra to rinse your eyes out. So a lot of things you can do as far as avoidance measures go. And then you can treat with medicines if that doesn't work for you.

JOHN KRINJAK: Is it true that you can actually develop a cedar allergy over time? How does that work?

RON COX: So that is not an uncommon thing, that when people move to Austin, their first couple years they're like 'no, I'm golden. I don't have any problems with cedar at all.' but then your body processes it and decides that it doesn't like it, and it creates an antibody that when you see it the next time, it creates all the allergy symptoms that you have. So it is not uncommon to develop a cedar allergy years three through five of being here.

Dr. Cox says given the recent prevalence of the "triple-demic", it can sometimes be difficult to differentiate between cedar fever, and a viral infection such as COVID, flu, or RSV. Cox recommends using this table from Nationwide Children’s Hospital to compare specific symptoms of each condition.

Symptoms of cedar fever similar to COVID-19, cold or flu include fatigue, sore throat, runny nose, partial loss of smell, and a slight fever. Fevers reaching over 101.5 °F, however, are likely to be caused by something other than cedar fever.

Symptoms relative to cedar fever only include itchy, watery eyes, blocked nasal passages, and sneezing. One way to distinguish allergies from sickness is mucous color, as cedar fever causes clear and running mucous while other infections lead to thicker, colored mucous.