Allergy: Live With or Without
You don’t have to go into hibernation this year if you take action to build your immunity. Enhancing your surroundings helps to keep allergy symptoms away as well.
1) Choose hardwood floors and throw rugs in your home if possible.
2) Close your windows and use the air conditioner to filter the air. Clean the air ducts.
3) Dust and clean the house on a routine schedule.
4) Keep a safe room to sleep in away from the pets
5) Keep your pets clean.
6) Increase or decrease your OPC-3 intake as the allergy season requires
You never really see how dirty a floor can be with carpet. Although carpet adds warmth and a finished look with the splash of color you may want, it hides dirt and allergens that are difficult to live with. It’s amazing how much easier it is to see dirt and hair on a hardwood floor. Your pet may need a pedicure more often or perhaps wear pet boots or shoes but along with throw rugs those are easy tasks to keep after when you are trying to eliminate allergy symptoms.
Looking at the cars parked in the neighborhood can tell you if your house windows should be left open. Living in industrial or commercial areas are especially difficult for controlling dust, whether it’s flour, corn, or quarry dust, or pollen from the trees and plants. Placing filters between you and the outdoor world is the first line of defense. Even taking an adjustable window screen and adding a plastic filter pad used in the furnace or in some vacuums will reduce the inflow of dust and can be removed and hosed off with water to clean. It’s amazing how dirty those primary filters can become. You don’t have to be in the military and wear white gloves to know it’s time to dust when you see it.
A bedroom at least is a the minimum place of safety when dealing with pet allergies. Make it a no entry zone for the household pet. Use a hair and dander mitt on cats. The moist towelette that removes dander helps as well. Dogs need to be groomed as well since they shed skin and dander even if they are short-haired. I’ve yet to see a truly hypo-allergenic pet. We all, including our pets, shed dry skin as it’s replaced.
Many air conditioning and heating specialists recommend running the circulation fan on the air handling unit continuously to use the filtration system. If the unit is on auto fan the intermittent airflow cannot filter the air in the home often enough. Recommended air exchanges per hour for most homes range between 10 to 18 times or a every 3 to 6 minutes. That may happen with the windows open but is unlikely with them closed. I have seen homes with individual room HEPA filters removed when going to an all house fan continuously on with a HEPA filter in the furnace or air conditioning unit.
If you’ve never taken the covers off the floor vents and looked inside you may be surprised what is lurking there. Even newly constructed homes have sawdust and dirt and cobwebs to trap all the nasty stuff that comes through the ducts. Like dust on your dresser or night stand, ducts inside need to be and can be cleaned by a local contractor in your area.
If you’re taking OPC-3 for allergies, increase the intake quantity as the pollen, dust or allergy challenge increases. Return to normal dosage levels when the allergen become less. The value of OPC-3 is that the normal antihistamine effects are all natural and boost the immune system allowing you to go anywhere and deal with what may normally debilitating.
