The rains came, and came, washing away the greenish-yellow pollen that had coated the landscape. But allergy clinics are still filling up with the miserable.
The rainstorms, it seems, solved one problem but ushered in others: flourishing mold and grass.
''There is an upside and a downside to the rain, depending on what people are allergic to,'' said Dr. James M. Rubin, chief of the clinical immunology and allergy division at Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan. ''A lot of people are feeling better, at least those people who were only allergic to tree pollens, because the rain washed a lot of the tree pollen away. But some people are allergic to both tree pollen and grass pollen, and that's why they're not feeling so good now.
''In addition,'' Dr. Rubin said, ''now there's a proliferation of mold spores, because of the rain and the dampness, so people allergic to mold won't be feeling so good.''
