Let me tell you the most important thing right at the beginning: yes, even if you developed an allergy against your beloved pet there are many remedies that you can try out, in order to keep your beloved dog, cat, bird, guinea pig or whatever.
It's not one solution, not just one thing that you'll have to change, except if you want to start with a heavy load of medicine first. There are many other things, that combined can help you a lot to handle a mild to medium reaction to your animal. A reaction like this is typically a runny nose, especially when you wake up in the morning, sneezing, itching eyes, breathing problems or a head ache.
Probably your allergy develops so slowly that at first you can't believe it's an allergy against your own pet, that you already have had for several years. When it slowly gets worse you don't go to the doctor out of the fear that he instructs you to give your beloved pet away and you continue to live with that discomfort.
The point is, that if you don't do something against your light allergy (congested sinuses and nasal passages, wheezing, itchy skin rashes) it probably will result in serious respiratory problems, like asthma, and the lungs can get permanently damaged. And then your quality of life will really be diminished despite various medical treatments.
This means even if you still can live quite well with you're pet allergy it's time to implement some changes:
- if you are like many other animal
lovers, your cat probably sleeps
in your bed. This is
something you definitely must
change. The bedroom, especially the bed needs to be a forbidden place
for your animals, day and night.
Other experts will advise you
even to keep your dog outside of the
house, which surely would be the
best considering your allergies
but for pets that have lived all
their life inside, it is not.
The problem behind having your
cat in your bed is a tiny protein particle. It is found in the cat's
skin flakes and saliva,
and is deposited on the fur when the cat licks
itself. After drying out it is shed into the air and can be deposited on
the walls, sheets and on the
blankets resulting in you breathing
it in while sleeping. If you decide to make your bedroom pet free, wipe
down the bedroom walls with a damp cloth to remove allergen deposits.
The same goes for sofas and chairs. Keep
your cat's or dog's sleeping place away from the parts of your home
where you spend most of your time. Vacuum every stretch of your sofa
thoroughly.
- As pet dander is all over (on the floor, furniture, walls, in the air, on the curtains, etc.) it is difficult and takes a long time until you can entirely remove the allergens from a room. If you are in the process of buying a sofa, take a leather one, so that it can be wiped down easily with a damp cloth.
- It is important to clean the house
regularly with a high quality vacuum cleaner using a
HEPA filter in order to trap the pet dander. Low quality models can't
keep all the dust inside and
blow part of the small particles out again, and those are the most
dangerous particles to breath in.
- For people with either dust mite allergy
or pet allergy it is recommended to remove carpets and replace them with
hardwood floor. Especially flush carpets retain a
lot of pet dander, fur and dust that is very difficult to remove.
- What helps to significantly reduce the
amount of allergen in furs and thus in the home is grooming and bathing
dogs and cats regularly with a special shampoo that removes the dander.
It washes away lot of the allergens as
well as the saliva that dries on the animals fur after they have washed
themselves.
- It is recommended that not the allergic
person should groom, bathe the
pet or clean the house, as through these
activities you breath in a lot of airborne pet
dander and other hazardous particles. After you have played
with your pet or stroked it,
don't forget to wash your hands. Otherwise later you will get the pet
dander or saliva in your face and hair.
- All of these
propositions mean of course a lot of physical cleaning work and time to
teach your pet that it's sleeping place will not be the bed or sofa
anymore, but a separate pet bed or blanket.
- The use of an air purifier to remove
airborne animal dander can help you to significantly improve your
respiratory and allergy problems. In the
end you will save a lot of money in medicine and doctor's bills and you
will have a much better quality
of life. A very efficient air filter cleans the indoor air from dust,
pet dander, mold spores, gases (for example radon), bacteria, viruses,
car exhaust and many other pollutants. This is a useful protection for
everybody, especially babies, children, elderly
people, people that suffer from allergies, asthma, environmental
diseases and people that need to
recover from a illnesses.
- These
are the things I think you should try out before taking oral
antihistamines, corticosteroids or beginning
an immunotherapy against your
allergies.
- Of course if you are not feeling better,
you need to see your doctor and combat your allergies with medicine.
- Before I come to an end, I still want you to know one thing; if you want to try getting rid of your pet for a while, it may take some months for the allergen level to fall significantly due to it's small size. It will not help you to give away your dog for a day or two. Therefore it would be more effective if the allergic person leaves the house for around a week or to be really sure . Also do a skin test or blood test to find out which specific allergies you really have.
