Pollen Skin Allergy

Hello

Last year I tried using a new eye cream that I had a reaction too. It took several months for this to settle down.

Unfortunately, whilst the skin around my eyes was still 'damaged', I attended a petting zoo and a couple of days later the skin around my eyes got extremely inflamed. Over the next month or so, I found that if I stayed in the house with the windows closed the skin around my eyes began to settle down. However leaving the house for as much as 5 minutes had a noticeable negative affect. I believe during the visit to the petting zoo the skin around my eyes became sensitised to pollen.

I was prescribed Protopic (tacrolimus monohydrate) and very strong anti-histamines and between the two, I'm generally okay outside for about 30 mins before seeing any negative effects and when I do they're far reduced compared to last year when I was just taking weaker anti-histamines. When I'm by the coast this extends to a few hours.

This means I'm generally okay going from to and fro the car and various places. The problem is this is having a massive affect on my family. It's summer and we're not able to open any windows and don't have air-con, I can't attend friend or family BBQs. We go to visit someone and they have their window open and I'm panicking. That's without simple and more obvious things like taking my children to the park or playing with them in the garden. I try to do as much as possible but the balance is a very fine line!

I've tried to do various research on pollen, skin allergies but in all honesty I've not found much that has really helped me. I've read a lot aimed at normal hayfever and general allergies but I struggle to find anything where the allergy is extremely localised on the skin (the only place I have an issue is on the skin around my eyes, totalling about a square inch of skin).

I'm not sure what pollens affect me, it happened around early July which is 'grass season' in the UK but I also had a reaction this March just gone, which could only be trees.

I'd like to learn more about the behaviour of pollen so I can 'balance the fine line' better. For example I've read that pollen count increases through the day and then drops off in the afternoon, but can increase again as the air cools and the pollen 'drops'. However it doesn't answer things like:

At what temperature does it begin to drop?
During the day, how high does it go? If I was at the top of a skyscraper would I be okay? What about a 2-3 story house? At what time could I open the upstairs windows and be okay?
Can grass pollen come a normal 'lawn' which is cut short?
How can a small area of skin react to pollen, when the rest of the skin is fine? Is this likely to be a temporary thing?

If possible I'd love to be able to buy an outdoor air quality device that can read pollen PPM. I know most can do 1 um or 10um PPM (we have a couple of indoor ones) but that can't differentiate between pollen, dust, etc. Do these exist? I can't find any when I search, if so, could anyone send me a link please?

I've seen a dermatologist but they wasn't really interested as it's 'managed', but any help anyone could give would be very much appreciated!

Thanks