Spring and summer allergy season is drawing to a close, but that doesn’t mean that there will be no more allergies until next year. What should allergy sufferers who are just entering their prime sneezing season be doing to prepare?
This problem is especially annoying for kids heading back to school. They may have been able to stay at home and inside during the summer, but during the school year, they’ll get behind if they stay home with allergies. On the other hand, going to school with allergies is distracting for classmates and frustrating for the allergy-sufferer.
Some of the allergens that are around in spring and summer are still around in the fall. Ragweed is a big one, and it starts pollinating in August and goes into fall, and the pollen can travel hundreds of miles and trigger the allergies of people who live far away from it. However, leftover summer allergens aren’t the only things there for the fall allergy sufferer. Mold is often an issue for allergy sufferers, and the piles of damp leaves creating little pockets of it is the perfect way to drive a mold-allergy person crazy. Dust mites, which seem like they would leave after summer humidity, sometimes get into the air when you turn on the furnace forthe first time after the summer.
School kids get to cope with the mold of a school that’s been vacant all summer (and the accompanying dust mites of the same situation), chalk dust and school lunch, and you have a recipe for hacking and wheezing all the way through to December.
Coping with fall allergies is similar to coping in other seasons – antihistamines, decongestants and allergy shots are all good options. However, you can also try the following to minimize allergic attacks:
Peak time for pollen is between 10 am and 3 pm. Avoid being outside during those hours as much as possible. Clean your ducts (or have them cleaned) before you turn your heater on for the first time in the fall. This will help to prevent allergic attacks from colonies of dust mites down the ducts. If you need to rake leaves, wear a mask. Raking is a great way to kick up mold spores, which can trigger allergic attacks. Use a HEPA (high efficiency particulate air) filter to keep your air clean.
Look on the bright side. Winter gets rid of most pollen, and it will be just around the corner before you know it.
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Posts Tagged ‘Allergy Sufferer’
Jan
25
Jan
12
The degree of allergies varies from person to person. It can especially be disheartening to see a young child with allergies to the extent that they cannot even have a pet. Could you imagine having a pet for years, and all of a sudden finding out you are no longer able to keep it? Is there a means to deal with pet allergies that may lessen or even eliminate altogether the suffering for adults and children?
What Are You Allergic To? **
By establishing whether your pet is really the origin of an allergy is certainly the best starting point. Regardless, that can be a difficult task if you already have a pet since the allergens are very difficult to eliminate entirely.
If an existing pet can be removed and the home thoroughly cleaned (carpets, walls, furniture etc.) you MAY be able to verify the allergy in several months. Obviously that is not the easiest solution.
Having the child stay with a friend or relative for a week or two (as long as there are no pets in the house) may show an improvement that might point to an allergy to the family pet.
A visit to your physician can authenticate an allergy with a simple exam. The tests vary, but some can be mildly uneasy and would likely not be considered if the symptoms were mild.
Some symptoms are compounded by exposure to several allergens. By identifying different sources and removing them you may find the reaction to pets is lessened and not a barrier to enjoying their company.
Establishing an Allergy Friendly Home **
There are several steps you can take to reduce the build up of allergens and bring relief to allergy sufferers.
The initial suggestion is to have hardwood or other smooth surface for your flooring. Carpets hold far more of the particles that cause allergies and hard flooring makes it easy to disinfect.
Leather furnishings is also ideal for homes with pet allergies. For the exact reason as hard flooring is more suitable than carpet, leather holds far less allergens than fabric.
Keep a chair for the allergy sufferer that pets are not allowed to sit on. Also be certain that animals do not sleep on the beds or enter the bedrooms of allergy sufferers. Think about keeping the sleeping area of the home as a pet-free zone.
Making Your Pet as Hypo-Allerggenic as Possible **
There are even things you can do with your pet to lessen the allergic effects of having them in your home.
Frequent grooming and bathing with a mild soap to prohibit over drying will reduce the dander that is one of the leading causes of pet allergies. It would be recommended that someone without allergies take on this task.
Washing hands after playing with a pet and avoiding touching your face with unwashed hands will also help. Since some individuals are also allergic to the saliva of pets it would be sensible to not allow your pet to lick you.
In the instance of more serious allergies or asthma it may be necessary that no pet share the home. For older children or adults it may be feasible to find a medication or treatment which makes the situation tolerable if they prefer to keep the pet in spite of the allergy.
Jan
06
In this brief article, we will define an allergy symptom and discuss some specific systems and what they mean to you as an allergy sufferer. An allergy symptom is any symptom associated with allergies such as a running nose, itchy eyes, watery eyes, sneezing, itchy skin, and more. We will go into some detail about where a symptom comes from and why they appear as well as a brief discussion about how to cure those symptoms if time permits.
What are some of the symptoms?
Some of the most common allergy symptoms occur for the seasonal allergies such as hay fever and include the itchy watery eyes, runny nose, and sneezing aspects of allergenic symptoms. Other cases of allergies feature more serious symptoms that can be more harmful and troublesome such as absentmindedness, dizziness, trouble swallowing, nausea, constipation, diarrhea, skin rashes, vertigo, vomiting, and other serious cases of health issues that may spring from how the body deals with the allergen itself.
Airborne allergies are, however, the most common form of allergies and tend to feature the most common form of an allergy symptom as well. Most of these symptoms are related to the sinuses as the hay fever and other allergies like hay fever tend to affect those systems of the body. Sneezing, a clogged and runny nose, itchiness in the eyes and throat, coughing, postnasal drip, and swollen eyes (a symptom called “conjunctivitis”) are all parts of the airborne allergy symptom repertoire.
Why do these symptoms occur?
Most times, the allergic reaction is coupled with a portion of the allergen. In other words, if the allergen is known for entering the lungs it will likely attack portions of the body related to the lungs and to breathing. An airborne allergy, thus, will likely attach itself to the breathing apparatus and my cause coughing or the nose to run because of the way it affects the system directly. There are other reasons for this that scientists studying allergy immunology are aware of, but the basics of most allergies are that they are “system attackers” in general.
How are the symptoms cured?
An allergy symptom can be cured in a number of ways depending on the actual system it affects and how drastically the body is affected. Many people can simply take, for example, an antihistamine for a hay fever type allergy and go about their day while others simply will not respond to the antihistamine. It is essentially a matter of the biological makeup of the allergy sufferer in terms of how they react to certain medications and how much medication is needed to cure the allergy symptom.