If I have nasal congestion, do I have allergies?

If I have nasal congestion, do I have allergies?

Harold Kaiser (Practicing Allergist and Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of Minnesota Medical School) gives expert video advice on: What causes allergies?; What happens in my body when I have an allergic reaction?; Are allergies becoming more common? and more...

No, nasal congestion is not always an allergy. For example, a cold is a nasal congestion- that's rhinitis, infectious rhinitis, viral infectious rhinitis. A fancy way of saying that you have inflammation in your nose because you have a cold. On the other hand, people who inhale things to which they are allergic, such as ragweed in the Midwest, or grass palm on the west coast, or people who have a reaction or [are] allergic to their animals, get inflammation in the nose. Sneezing, itchy nose, mucous secretions, and the like, that's a nasal allergy. There're also non-allergic forms of rhinitis, where people simply have a nose which runs or is stuffy much of the time, even though there is no known allergy. All rhinitis is not allergic, a fraction of it is.