can someone help with a few questions??

Hi Matt, I used to take these shots for mold,cats & dust mites, the one for dust mites & cats worked, the one for mold did not. It took about 3 months for me to notice a difference.Allergies can cause real havoc with the immune system. As far as pollen advisories go , listen to your allergies for going out, that,s the greatest accuracy of all, your own system.,but do get out whenever possible.Maybe you shold discuss your symptoms in detail with your physician. Hope this helps.Take care & God Bless. Also welcome to the forum! later....

Matt,
Judging what kind of allergy day you will have based on the reported pollen counts in your area isn;t the best way to do it. Pollen is not pollen. Sure the tree pollen count may be low, but perhaps the grass pollen is high. Not all pollen reporting systems break down the types of pollen out there and even if they do, it's not always helpful. If the tree pollen is low, but all that pollen is from Oak trees and you are allergic to Oaks, it's going to be a bad day for you. But, if that low count is all Maples, and you'r not allergic to them, you might have a good day. So, using your own body to determine how you feel is a much better barometer than the generic reports available.
When I was first Dx with athsma, it was by a Doc who I worked with in the ER. She literally chased me around with her stethoscope cause she wanted to listen to my chest. I kept assuring her that it was just my spring cold, but she was sure it was allergic athsmatic bronchitis. She started me on an anti-histamine and inhaler and within 20 minutes of first using them, I was perfect! I couldn't believe it! Every Spring and Fall I suffered like this only to discover almost by accident that it was really allergies.
An allergic reaction is regulated by our immune system. If your symptoms involve your sinuses and you chest, there will be inflammation in those areas (sinusitis, bronchitis, laryngitis, etc.) This inflammation brings with it a whole load of White Blood Cells & histamines to fight off the offending allergen. It's not all that uncommon for a stong allergic response to push our immune system into overdrive and to create a low grade fever. Anything Higher than 101 should get an evaluation for infection, but most often, fevers occurring with allergic reactions are lower than that.
I've also got some horrible allergies and even worse sinus problems. After the failed sinus surgery and the disasterous attempts to fix the problems that the first surgery caused, it was decided that I should once again try the allergy shots. I had begun them in my teens but stopped when it just got to be too much and then our insurance changes and I couldn't continue at the same place. I started again in m early 20s, but other health problems ended up interfering with my schedule and the painful local injection site reactions just got to be too much, so I quit again.
Anway, this third time around, I stuck it out for a year. Somewhere about 5 months into the treatment, I had a horrible increase in migraines. I had previously been able to control them with Fioricet, but suddenly they were more and more often and I needed to self inject Imitrex for relief. I eventually got to where I was injecting 2 to 3 times a week! I mentioned the shots to a co-worker one day and she said that her nephew had been taking allergy shots too, but that he had to stop because of the headaches! My Allergist tried me on a relatively high dose of steroids both before and after my shots, but I wasn't happy on that high of a steroid dose. I had seen some significant reduction in my allergies, but I just couldn't tolerate the migraines anymore, so I quit again. It took between 4 and 6 motnhs to finally notice the decrease in my migraines.
I hope that the shots will help you, but remember to pay attention to your body and how it's reacting. Discuss the dosages with your Doc, especially if you get large welts at the injection site. I had to have my dose reduced several times because of thos elocal reaction. Also, since you're being injected with something that you're allergic to, it's possible to have a proplonged allergic reaction to the shots, sinilar to what happened to me with the migraines. Best Wishes.