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DelilahDeb -> RE: SEVERE SEVERE cat allergy - is there help? (11/27/2008 3:14:40 PM)
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Background info: grass pollen and cat dander are structurally/chemically quite similar. This is one reason why so many folks have both allergies. Of course, the fact that cats (most pets) generally have access to getting their coats full of lawn toxins (grass allergies here!) doesn't help.
The largest component of household dust in most environments is pollen—something close to three-quarters of it!
The victim can:
- 1, Get a neti pot (I use a small porcelain gravy pitcher) and use it at least morning and evening. (Wash out sinuses with warm salted water, like the old gargle recipe for sort throats.) Huge help. NY Times article on the neti pot.
- 2. Establish an "allergen-free" place for the victim to sleep; I lived through four years of three-plus months massive grass pollen allergies without such. (It was as if I had a streaming head cold at its worst stage continuously for those three months, to the point that I slept no more than two hours a night before sinus pressure pain in my face woke me up and forced me to turn over so the full side could drain…until the other side filled up)—and the night that my mom installed a room size ESP air cleaner in my room was the first time I slept through a night during March–June in my entire high school career.) This may take significant home changes: excluding allergens (cats) permanently from the bedroom; cleaning/washing the entire room from the ceiling and walls down including closets (carpets are much harder to clean than wood floor, tile, or lino); removing and washing or cleaning every scrap of fabric or bedding and getting it back into the room before a cat sleeps on the nice warm stuff in the dryer basket.
- 3. Get and use under-pillowcases and mattress covers for managing allergies (they prevent dust in pillows and mattress from being dislodged into one's immediate airspace every time one gets into bed or moves around in bed). They're washable but won't need it every time you change the normal bedding. Maybe every third or fourth time. If a cat gets in, repeat at least the later half of step 1, washing fabrics.
- 4. Acquire a electrostatic precipitator type room air cleaner (these bleeping HEPA filter units are relatively cheap ($60) but require that you throw plastic single-use filters away frequently and replacements cost almost a third of the cost of the unit ($15–20 each)! Electrostatic precipitator units have metal plates on which the junk in the air is captured by controlled static and can then be cleaned by washing regularly—some models have a "club sandwich" of collector plates in a single removable assembly that one can run through a dishwasher on a gentle cycle. Honeywell and others make ESP units that you can add to a central AC/furnace or to individual duct registers in specific room/s. Brands to hunt for include Bionaire and Pollenex and any working OEM clones: I've owned Montgomery Ward, Kenmore and Tryon (both bought at Sears), and I dunno what all. The spendy Sharper Image brand Ionic Breeze also cleans the air using ESP and are silent when operating…but (a) they are damn pricey, and (b) I was never able to find out how much air they circulate how quickly. Older Kenmore and other ESP units that I have owned specifically state that they, for example, "remove 95.8% of pollutants from 2,000 cubic feet of air—that's a room 10x20 feet with a 10-foot ceiling—within 20 minutes when running the fan on high speed."
- 5. Talk to your MD about older as well as newer antihistamines (histamine is the stuff your immune system makes because it thinks the allergen is some sort of attacking organism). When Benadryl was the only antihistamine available, it was Hobson's choice, but these days there are both the "passé" prescriptions that are available over the counter, everything from nose sprays, pills, inhalers, eyedrops. Speaking of passé, I find the antihistamine trade-named Cromolyn Sodium (the active ingredient in Nasalcrom nose spray, as well as the prescription inhaler Intal and eyedrops Opticrom) a very effective choice that—when combined with my safe-zone bedroom—very much minimize any symptomatic meds I might need to use. A far cry from when I had to spend my three-plus months so dopey with symptoms that I didn't even notice any "drowsiness" side effects of Benadryl and its cousins.
Everyone is different. I provide this laundry list for the aid of folks who would rather help themselves first, and resort to so-so medical practitioners later.
Lady Delilah Deb
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