Pretty much this. How many artists did you follow on, say, reddit? There were so few on there, and those that were there mainly linked to alternate social media and just used reddit to get engagement. Lemmy is probably the most approachable activitypub interface (we all remember trying to find the damn content on mastadon/bluesky…) and it’s just not big or established enough to be worth trusting. Hopefully that will start changing soon as more people hop over from the myriad other sites, we seem to be past the critical point for new users, but it just takes time.
I would absolutely advise talking to a doctor about this. That very much sounds like an allergy, and although there are many meds that may help, none of us online can safely advise them for you, you really do need a prescriber with access to your medical records/bloodwork for that.
As far as first steps go, regularly taking OTC allergy meds and developing a daily cleaning schedule + filters for the bedroom + keeping your dog off the bed at the very least, and ideally out of the bedroom entirely, will help. Also frequently bathing your dog can help keep the dander down.