Fall has returned to our radars and so has Fall allergies.

For me it’s kinda funny because besides knowing I’m allergic to dogs and cats (and honestly not caring one bit), I did not have a lot of seasonal symptoms until living for over a year in Knoxville, Tennessee where the locals claim: “If you didn’t have any allergies when you got here, you will by the time you leave.”

Now I’m not too sure how ultimately true this is, such as the possible science behind it but I do know the local line was that it had something to do with Knoxville being in a valley where all the pollen and other allergy nasties were constantly barraging the town with allergens.

Regardless, it seemed to work with me as I gained the fun times seasonal allergies bring such as sinus headaches, pressure, sneezing, and a slight throat ache.

I’m not even sure if I mentioned the sleepless nights when you wake up with a wicked sinus headache that seems like a little man is ringing a bell in your head. Worse, both over the counter medications make me feel ‘ill,’ basically tired, and not feeling quite right, and that leads to my other gripe.

Today it seems you go to your regular doctor, he gives out referrals to a specialist, you wait a couple months to see said specialist, who then orders tests or actions to take before saying he will see you in another two months.

In the meantime, you’re still struggling with whatever ailments you may have, which although usually not of a severe nature, but annoying and painful enough to have made you come to a doctor’s office.

Maybe it’s a sign of getting older as I pass the gates of middle age into my ‘back nine’ on the course of life, but I miss the days when even if your primary care doctor had to send you to a specialist, he also took steps to try and remedy the problem for the short term right then and there. Half the time my childhood doctor (who was a third generation physician as well) would do so with samples of medication he had right there in his office!

He also understood if you needed to wait a week or two to pay him as long as you did in the end…try that in the 21st century!

Thing is I don’t know if I’m just becoming nostalgic for things that were not as good as memory makes them out to be, as I know the medical industry was always just that, an industry for profit, or at least it was during my lifetime. Regardless, doctors seemed to care more and seemed more diligent about their patients’ well being and health.

I’m not suggesting that there are no good doctors out there. I once knew a doctor in the modern era aptly named ‘Doctor Love,’ a wonderful doctor who once she was done working with the poor in Chicago moved on to working with the poor in Boston instead of getting some well paid cushy job away from the actual point of medicine…healing patients.

In short, more doctors like that please – and less guessing and passing patients around like a hot potato.