Yeah I remember the last thread and it seemed to be the case.

My daughter never suffered when we lived in South Africa but immediately struggled in the UK when she arrived. The rest of us were completely unaffected. So I knew there was a great chance she'd be ok here in Oz cause it's very similar (almost exactly the same) to Africa flora wise.

I've never had hay fever, until this year

Haven't stopped sneezing or sniffling for almost 6 weeks now. I have been taking some generic tablets, some days they work others they don't.

Only thing that has changed for me is the office I work in. It's a pretty old building and I think it's the air con. So maybe a dust allergy?

Guess I'll find out in a couple of weeks, as I will be going to the UK. By the time I get back, I think we'll have more or less finished the job we're doing, so hopefully moving to a new office by then.

At the end of the day, it comes down to the chemicals we've been exposed to stuffing up our immune/nervous systems. It accumulates and bang one day your body reacts.

Thank god you do have allergies, because apparently the people with the higher incidents of Allergies are less likely to develop cancers. Not sure where I read that... but it was recently.

Australian flora has strong links to African flora as the two continents were once linked, but we were also linked to South America and Antarctica as well so we have strong links to those continents floristically as well (Antarctica was once covered in rainforest). Northern Aus has very strong links to Asia in terms of its flora as these areas are still closely linked geographically.

Also, as Australia has been separated and isolated from the rest of the world geographically for a long time, we have plants that are entirely unique to this continent and aren't even closely related to plants elsewhere in the world.

We also have a large number of weed species that were introduced in the early times of settlement and now occur naturally. Many of these are South African species but many are from other parts of the world including Europe.

The number one culprit for hay fever in the major cities has been identified as rye grass. This is one of the most common pasture grasses grown particularly in the south eastern part of the country. This grass is not an Australian native, it is native to Europe, the Middle East and Northern Africa.