How can you tell in this area if it’s cold or allergies?

I’ve only ever lived in Baytown or League City my whole life and never dealt with allergies or very many colds until about five year ago (I’m 39). Now I’ve been getting 2-3 colds a year and they all last 10-14 days no matter what I do to try and shorten them. I get a clean bill of health at the dr every year. Is my childhood spent in Exxon’s shadow just slowly killing me undetected or what? Have any of y’all developed bad allergies later in life?