NUMBER OF EARACHES KEEP AREA DOCTORS BUSY

Suffering from a runny nose, watery eyes, congestion and a generally sneezy feeling?

How about earache, dizziness -- or just plain loss of balance -- and nausea?

Patients with both those sets of symptoms are keeping doctors around the region busy as allergy season winds up and ear infections make the rounds.

Ragweed and mold "are the biggies" making allergy-sufferers miserable right now, said Dr. Robert Sacha, a Cape Girardeau allergist.

"We're in a bad area here," Sacha said. "It's hot and it's humid. It's a good place to grow stuff. Farms do very well, and so do grasses and weeds, and this is ragweed season."

Warm temperatures and dry weather are intensifying the misery, he said.

"The first frost is what everybody waits for and hopes for," Sacha said. "In the meantime, people will suffer."

One mistake people make in early fall is opening the windows to enjoy the warm days and cool nights instead of using their air conditioners, he said.

"That's the wrong thing to do," he said, adding that the money those folks save on their utility bills will probably just go their doctor or pharmacist once their allergies kick in.

"Opening the windows just lets all that stuff come in to the house, or they use an attic fan it just sucks it all in," he said.

The high mold and ragweed counts contribute to other conditions, including asthma and respiratory infections, Sacha said. And it's almost time for the fall/winter round of upper respiratory viruses to start anyway.

Part of the problem is location. Southeast Missouri lies in two allergen plains, he said: the Eastern farming plain and the Southern coastal plain. That means twice as many allergens exist here to irritate the vulnerable.

And in the Bootheel, cotton may not be king anymore, but it is one of the primary villains for people sensitive to mold, he said. As the cotton fields are defoliated, either through tilling or burning, all the mold in the cotton plants is stirred up and released into the air.

"Those black clouds of dust that hang over the combines, those are all mold," Sacha said.

The chemicals used to clear the field are also irritants, he said.

"This is a great place to be if you're an allergist," Sacha said. "If you have allergies, it's not."

Ear infections are also making people miserable, said Dr. Kenneth DeCoursey, an emergency room physician at St. Francis Medical Center.

"We've seen several of those," he said. "Usually it's pretty self-limiting. It lasts for several days."

The culprit is probably a virus that affects the inner ear, DeCoursey said.

"Basically, that's the portion of your ear that controls your balance. It knocks out your balance, and that causes the nausea," he said.

DeCoursey said he hasn't seen too many of the usual winter viruses yet, and so far, the flu hasn't made an appearance in the area.

Dr. Michael Critchlow, a Cape Girardeau allergist, said an allergist's practice is "fairly seasonal," with spring and fall being the busiest times of year.

"August, September and October are usually our busiest month" as weeds and ragweed come into their own, he said. April, when trees and grasses begin growing, is the busiest spring month, he said.

A number of medicines are available to help relieve allergy patients' suffering, he said, both by prescription and over-the-counter.

The over-the-counter antihistamines may have too many side effects, including drowsiness, for some people, he said. An array of nose sprays, eye drops and decongestants and antihistamines are also available.