Let's Talk Allergies

Ragweed and Mold – Fall Allergens

If you find you are scratching your eyes and feeling a bit more stuffy than usual, it may be because fall allergens such as ragweed are at their peak. The other thing that is causing problems for a lot of people is mold. All of the wet leaves on the ground have to be raked up. When you do it releases mold spores right where you are working. Ragweed pollen and mold are the most common fall allergens for people with fall seasonal allergies

Not to take the fun away but you may want to keep the kids out of those big piles of leaves if the have allergies or asthma.

Another thing we are getting calls on is people are turning on the heaters for the first time and getting all stopped up. The problem is mold, dust, dirt, pollen, pet dander can build up on the heating coils during the summer. When you switch on the heat for the first all of that starts to burn off. Besides smelling bad, the allergens become airborne. This is the most common of the indoor fall allergens.

Being in South Florida we would see it all the time when the first good cold snap hit. We don’t have the problem at out house because we don’t have heat.

Best thing you can do aside from having the system cleaned, is to open a few windows when you first turn on the heating system. Do it early in the day so anything that blows out has a chance to settle.

Wishing you the best of health
Mike Krause

800 771-2246

Discover How to Explain Asthma to Your Child

You suspected something was wrong. You looked at the 10 Signs you May Have Asthma and made an appointment with the doctor for your child. Now, you just left the doctor’s office knowing for sure why your young son has been coughing and wheezing all this time. It is not an infection. It is asthma. Now you must explain asthma to your child.

Before you can explain asthma to your child, you must do your homework. First, you must learn everything you can about asthma;

what it is,
what causes it,
what are your child’s triggers,
what to avoid
and how to treat it.

Your world just got a bit more complicated.

What do you need to cover when you explain asthma to your child? Explain asthma to your 8-year-old son in terms he can understand. Explain that he now has to take medicine, and use inhalers and peak flow meters. Let him know these are helpers to keep him healthy. Assure him that he will get comfortable with a mask put over his mouth for breathing treatments. Hard stuff for an adult to deal with much less an 8-year-old.

This is how some of our customers have handled explaining asthma to a child.

Be honest. Let them know that asthma is serious but with some work, they will be able to still have lots of fun. There will just be some new rules to follow. When they ask what asthma is keep it simple. “Asthma makes it hard for you to breath sometimes” The best example if you have to explain asthma to a child is an experience from their own life. Remind them of a time they had difficulty breathing. Get into more detail when they can understand it.

Teach them their triggers and asthma symptoms. Let them know they will need to be more careful and pay attention to their surroundings. Your child needs to understand the signs of an asthma attack and what to do if they have a hard time breathing. “Find mom or dad, your teacher or another adult if you don’t feel good”.

Keep them involved. Make a game out of filling out the peak flow meter charts. If one of their triggers is pollen, teach them what pollen is and where it comes from. If weather changes trigger your child’s asthma, watch the Weather Channel and learn about cold fronts. Great time to teach them about keeping a daily journal.

Asthma is a lifelong condition but it does not necessarily mean they can’t do the things they like to. They and you just need to be careful.

Wishing you the best of health

Mike Krause

The Allergy Store

Avoid Ticks – Here’s Another Reason

We know ticks carry disease. If you live in the Southeastern United States, you know to avoid ticks. You are particularly aware of the risks of Lyme disease as well as Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. (As an aside, why do they call it “Rocky Mountain” when you are more apt to find it in the Appalachian or other eastern mountains and not the Rockies? But I digress).

Well, researchers at the Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of Virginia (Susan Wolver, MD, Diane Sun, MD, and others) have discovered another reason to avoid ticks. Their research indicates that the bite of a Lone Star tick (named for the spot on its middle, not its location in the Lone Star state) can cause subsequent anaphylaxis when eating red meat.

What is even more interesting is that the IgE antibodies are as a result of the carbohydrate alpha-gal. This is the first time a carbohydrate as been identified as an allergy trigger. All other triggers are proteins. Further complicating matters, these people have a negative skin prick test to meat. This makes making a diagnosis even more difficult. As if diagnosis weren’t tricky enough, the symptoms occur between three to six hours after exposure, much longer than usual for food allergy. All because you forgot to avoid ticks!

Read all about it here in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

If you are outside in wooded areas or fields, be sure to check carefully when you come inside for ticks. Ticks like to hide in folds of skin. They should be removed so that the entire tick is removed, and the head is not left behind. But of course you know this, you just didn’t know the link between tick bites and allergy to red meat. That is until now. Yet another reason to avoid ticks.

Until next time!

Cheryl
The Allergy Store