Allergen controls - what's worked for you?

In My Humble Opinion
1

We’re embarking on a series of steps to reduce the allergens in Moon Unit’s environment: the usual “reduce the dust” steps such as removing carpet in the bedroom, encasing the mattress and pillows, reducing stuffed animals (already done thanks to a head-lice infestation last year)… we may also put a HEPA filter in the room.

She’s gone, in the past year or so, from needing asthma meds only during a cold, to needing them daily, having to switch to different antihistamines, and still developing a bit of eczema. I imagine her scalp itching (mentioned here ) is at least somewhat related.

So we’re hoping that by making her room “allergy-safe”, we’ll be able to turn down the knob on her immune system a bit and make her less hyperreactive.

Anyway - I’m just wondering if others who’ve done these steps have had a really noticeable improvement in symptoms, and which ones you’ve found the biggest benefit from. The mattress covering is cheap enough (though the plasticky ones seem horrid and the cotton ones, do they even work?) and we own a HEPA unit already; the floor would seem to offer the biggest improvement but is also a rather major expense.

standard disclaimer: she’s under the care of qualified medical personnel, I’m just polling fellow sufferers for their experiences.

2

If you turn up any solution to eczema, please let me, and society, know. Had it all my life, albeit at a fairly mild level. As far as the symptoms go, the answer for me is a topical antibiotic, I’m convinced that the waste products of bacterial metabolism must play a role in causing outbreaks. That is clealy treating the symptoms though, I’m clueless as to how you prevent it in the first place.

There is a massive difference in potency of antihistamines. I used to go to my GP at the start of summer and ask for something for my chronic hay fever. Being in the UK NHS, they would refuse to perscibe the daddy antihistamine because it was too expensive (I forget the name of it - I’m a chemist by trade and should know it as it’s a masterpiece of drug discovery). They’d give me claritin plus or some such bollocks and ask me to come back if it didn’t work. The hay fever always clears up by itself after 1 month anyway, once the immune system gets its shit together, so I never bothered.

To actually answer the OP on how you prevent allergy flare-ups in the first place - I’ve found sweat is an important contributing factor for eczema. A days hiking, or mountain biking can really wreak havoc on my skin. I find nappy-rash cream is very effective at preventing rashes etc at ankles, elbow, wrist joints. It sounds like you’re talking about a kid in the OP, so maybe this is not relevant, but pre-empting sweaty outdoor activities has worked for me.

3

The best solution to a “plasticky” mattress cover is a T-shirt knit sheet. Put a regular cotton sheet (fairly high thread count is best) over the mattress cover, then put the T-shirt knit sheet over that. Pretty comfortable, in our experience.

4

I second the t-shirt sheet. I have had eczema since infancy, and have had good success with Kenalog, a steroid cream. When it gets extremely bad – as in cracking and bleeding – a one-week blast of prednisone will blast it away. ITA with Busy Scissors about the sweat: sweating is bad. Salt is very irritating. Look at a mild OTC hydrocortisone cream for the lesser outbreaks.

5

I definitely benefit from the encasings. I have a mattress cover over a plasticky encasing. The mattress cover does need to be washed in hot or treated water when I wash the sheets. I also have pillows and the box spring encased.

Washing bedding frequently in hot water and/or using a laundry additive like de-Mite is helpful. I know it’s probably hard with a kid, but I would remove the stuffed animals from the bedding area. I have an encased body pillow so I have something to snuggle, that might be an option. Or maybe some type of washable stuffed animal. But any type of non-washable stuffed anything will just harbor mites and their detritus.

If pollen also contributes to her allergies, taking a shower and washing her hair before bed or after coming home from outside can help. I do that during pollen season.

You can treat carpet periodically with something like Allersafe or The Ecology Works (two brands I’ve tried). When I first did that, I could actually feel how much better the air was for me to breathe.

Also, make sure she sleeps in fresh pajamas every night. Putting on something that has been sitting in a hamper or a pile on the the floor is not good. Dirty laundry breeds dust mites. Avoid wearing clothes multiple times without washing/dry cleaning. Sometimes it feels wasteful, but once some dead skin cells are on the clothes, the mites will breed.

We haven’t got a HEPA filter, but do put filters on the heating/cooling vents.

I get my allergy supplies at www.nationalallergy.com

6

[QUOTE=Busy Scissors]
If you turn up any solution to eczema, please let me, and society, know. Had it all my life, albeit at a fairly mild level. As far as the symptoms go, the answer for me is a topical antibiotic, I’m convinced that the waste products of bacterial metabolism must play a role in causing outbreaks. That is clealy treating the symptoms though, I’m clueless as to how you prevent it in the first place.
[/quote]

I’ll certainly be a wealthy woman if I can find a sure-fire solution to eczema! Interesting on the antibiotic helping you. My hope in doing the environmental steps is that if her immune system is being pushed to, say, level 8 all the time, and exposure to something new ramps that up 2 notches to 10 to cause a flareup… well, if her daily level is reduced to 5… then the extra exposure would “just” push her up to, well, 7 and not tip her over into the range of being miserable. As a friend’s husband just got out of the hospital after requiring IV antibiotics due to secondary infection from a flareup, well, it’s a worry!

Goodness - even when the year before, the claritin didn’t work?

Moon Unit was on claritin (loratadine) for a while and we realized it wasn’t doing the job well at all; Zyrtec (cetirazine) helped more but had the odd side effect of insomnia (usually it’s sedating). She was switched to Allegra (fexofenadine) a few weeks ago because her doctor noted “she just looks allergic” (the shiners, eye irritation etc.) even though she was on Zyrtec already, and “Allegra is a better medication”. Some health insurance plans won’t pay for the prescription meds (which Allegra still is) until you can document that you’ve tried the over the counter stuff. Well, we can do that! She’s also on Singulair (one of the leukotriene inhibitors).

I’d be interested in hearing the “daddy antihistamine”'s name if you think of it.

Hm, interesting! I’ll keep an eye out for things like that. Once the flareup is under control, I’ll ask the doctors about whether it’s OK to put moisturizer or something on the trouble spots.

7

I live in a dusty old wooden house, with a dog, and allergies. I have HEPA polyester fabric-y mattress covers and pillowcases (got 'em at Wal-Mart, these are the ones I have on the twin beds); they’re not as crackly as the all-vinyl ones, and they don’t deteriorate and split in a year the way the vinyl ones do. And I have four, count 'em, four HEPA air filters around the (two-story) house–one in the living right next to my computer chair, one next to the TV set, one up in my daughter’s room next to her bed, and one right next to my bed on the nightstand. The idea is that you’re sitting or lying in the cone of clean air it puts out. The trick is to change the carbon pre-filter every couple of months as it fills up with dog hairs and dust and assorted yuck, and the main filter every six months.

And we removed 90% of the carpet at one point in the proceedings. This made a big difference.

And I too have the box spring encased, although only in vinyl, as it doesn’t flex the way the mattress does, so the vinyl doesn’t crack as quick.

This, plus washing the dog’s bedding religiously, helps noticeably. However, I can’t do anything about the mold spores that are generated in the basement when the temp and humidity are just right, so every so often I sit here with eyes streaming for a day or so, until the weather changes.

8

The big thing for my old roomate was the mattress and particularly pillow cover. It was also a boon to me, as it improved her snoring immensely.

She also swears by the more expensive filters on her air conditioner.

9

This comes from my own experience with allergies, not eczema, but it’s what works for me. I have found the cumulative exposure thing to be true for myself.

You don’t mention what her allergy testing showed, or if there are any pets in the house. Depending on whether she is allergic to pollen or dust or both, it may be better to open the windows (to let out the dust) or keep them closed (to keep out the pollen).

If she is allergic to a pet, that pet can never, ever, ever go in her room again, even when she isn’t there. Everything in the room must be washed. She shouldn’t be near the pet when she is wearing her pj’s, and she should wash up after playing with the pet. It’s the dander that causes the allergies, not the hairs themselves. It might be worth a try even if she’s not allergic - it’s still an irritant.

I also use allergy cases from National Allergy. I got the first one up in niceness from vinyl. It’s much nicer, and seems to help. It’s not a magic bullet, but it’s one part of the solution.

10

[QUOTE=Mama Zappa]

Moon Unit was on claritin (loratadine) for a while and we realized it wasn’t doing the job well at all; Zyrtec (cetirazine) helped more but had the odd side effect of insomnia (usually it’s sedating). She was switched to Allegra (fexofenadine) a few weeks ago because her doctor noted “she just looks allergic” (the shiners, eye irritation etc.) even though she was on Zyrtec already, and “Allegra is a better medication”. Some health insurance plans won’t pay for the prescription meds (which Allegra still is) until you can document that you’ve tried the over the counter stuff. Well, we can do that! She’s also on Singulair (one of the leukotriene inhibitors).

I’d be interested in hearing the “daddy antihistamine”'s name if you think of it.
Hm, interesting! I’ll keep an eye out for things like that. Once the flareup is under control, I’ll ask the doctors about whether it’s OK to put moisturizer or something on the trouble spots.
[/QUOTE]
Fexofenadine was the one I was thinking of - has worked flawlessly for me in the past for clearing up hay fever.

11

[QUOTE=Pigs in Space]
This comes from my own experience with allergies, not eczema, but it’s what works for me. I have found the cumulative exposure thing to be true for myself.

You don’t mention what her allergy testing showed, or if there are any pets in the house. Depending on whether she is allergic to pollen or dust or both, it may be better to open the windows (to let out the dust) or keep them closed (to keep out the pollen).

If she is allergic to a pet, that pet can never, ever, ever go in her room again, even when she isn’t there. Everything in the room must be washed. She shouldn’t be near the pet when she is wearing her pj’s, and she should wash up after playing with the pet. It’s the dander that causes the allergies, not the hairs themselves. It might be worth a try even if she’s not allergic - it’s still an irritant.

[/QUOTE]

I don’t have the list of her allergies at-hand, but IIRC it includes pretty much all the usual suspects - pollen, dust, cats (but, specifically, NOT dogs). We don’t currently have a dog, but are planning to get one at some point (long story involving demonstration of improved responsibility). We do have guinea pigs - to which I’m mildly allergic and it’s conceivable that she is as well; however they live in the family room and don’t get handled all that much, so they cause little-to-no problem.

We would definitely make the bedrooms off-limits if we do get a dog; that would also of course be limited to one of the less-allergenic breeds as well.

Answering other posts:

Good to hear that several of you have noted improvements with the mattress encasings. That seems a relatively low-cost way of helping, and minimal work as well (100 bucks if we go for top-of-the-line stuff, and 10 minutes to wrestle the mattress into the case). I measure the mattress last night and will order something today.

Duck Duck Goose - those moldy days sound miserable! When we were first married, we lived in a WWII-era apartment with no central A/C so we got a window unit. Typo Knig for some reason decided that we didn’t need to change the filter on the unit, instead it was OK to just wash the filter periodically. This didn’t work all that well, and every time the damn thing came on, I had violent allergic attacks (sneezing, runny eyes, etc. - fortunately this was when my own asthma was on hiatus). I ate Clor-Trimeton by the spoonful, it seemed. MISERY!

I’ll have to check the HEPA units’ status - I think both of ours are ready to be put to work as we haven’t needed them in ages. Possibly new carbon filters. They’re a bit large, but will do well enough until I spring for a smaller bedroom-sized one. An example of what they do: Years ago I worked in a sub-basement in a Federal office building, and I (and others on the team) had horrible respiratory issues. I brought in my big barrel-shaped HEPA unit and set it on a table in my cubicle. When I removed the outer covering, I could see thick dust piled up on the carbon prefilter. And there was a parabola-shaped dark line on the (brand-new) cubicle wall next to the thing: below the line the wall was clean. Above the line it was dingy. The line itself? if I touched it, black GOO came off on my fingers. That’s how bad the air in that room was.

Harriet the Spry: I’ll check into the anti-dust-mite products you mentioned. My daughter has limited stuffed animals in the room right now, fortunately (never thought I’d be grateful for that dose of head lice :stuck_out_tongue: ) - right now all she sleeps with is one soft doll (washable, though falling apart so we can’t wash all that often) and 2 very small (beanie-baby-sized) dogs. Little enough, and if we do the other steps, hopefully not worth taking from her. I’m glad my son doesn’t appear to have these problems - his bed is more than 50% covered in stuffed toys and he would utterly break down if we removed any (he’s autistic, and has developed a very strong emotional attachment to them).

Good point on changing to fresh pajamas every night - she does that anyway (which annoys me, as it’s more laundry), but if it benefits her, it’s worth it. We’re encouraging her to shower every night but sometimes time slips away; my kids are both still of the opinion that showers are “once a week whether you need it or not” :rolleyes: so it’s always a fight anyway. We do need to enforce that better.

12

I suffered bad allergies as a kid and teenager (dust, cats, pollen mostly). I was congested well more than half the time and I couldn’t find an antihistamine that would touch it.

As an adult I got a lot better. I still experience the allergies (I can feel congestion deep in my throat on high-pollen days, and my doctor points it out whenever she looks in my ears) but I don’t get symptoms any more (except in the presence of cats, although they’re much milder).

The key differences: no carpets/drapes, minimal upholstery (and constant vacuuming), and this is key: no dairy. I don’t understand why, and I’ve never been allergic to milk products, but when I consume them it makes me sneeze and get congested.

Might be worth trying, anyway.

13

head itching does get worse when pollens you are sensitive to bloom. sometimes you have to wash your hair 3 or more times a day. when you do only use shampoo every other day, use conditioner during all washings. it keeps hair and scalp moisturized, that really helps keep the itching down.

some times i have to wash my hair when i get to work or i’ll just about tear my hair out. hats are really helpful during heavy pollen times.

14

One thing I haven’t seen mentioned is bathing just before bed, rather than in the morning. Bathing just before bed cleans off the pollen/dust/dander/whatever picked up during the day.

I know the kid will probably hate this, but she needs to help with all the cleaning up, laundry, etc. as one day she will have to do this for herself. However, house cleaning presents it’s own problems. For house cleaning I cover up - pants, long sleeves, gloves, and a dust mask and cover my hair with a bandana.

15

oh good grief, you have just described most of my cleaning out-fit as well, i’m usually barefoot though. i use the bandana as the dust mask (not as sweaty, and has that train robber elan), and a baseball cap for hair coverage. every thing gets washed sep. from all my other clothes. they will go in the last wash after everything else has gone through.

i do have “basement” shoes that i wear only in the basement or taking the trashcan from the basement to the front walk.

16

Do you have forced air heat/air conditioning? I bought myself a central air unit along with a Trane CleanEffects air filter ($1200 above and beyond the cost of the air conditioner) and I can really tell the difference. It’s a whole-house HEPA filter, basically.

It didn’t remove every trace of dust and dirt from my house - I am a heavy smoker (well, was - I quit!) and have a dog - but you can instantly tell the difference in air quality when the air is circulated through the HVAC system. Now that I’ve quit, my house smells and looks better.

It’s expensive but I think it’s worth it. I don’t even have really bad allergies, but I really wanted the awesome filter.

17

Back before our house’s wiring decided it wasn’t up to the challenge of a window unit upstairs, when the kids were little, we had a window unit in Bonzo’s bedroom. And every late May, like clockwork, he would cough and hack like a lifelong chain smoker. For a week only. At the end of May. Only.

It took me a few years to figure out that the air conditioner filter, as it sat there for nine months, was happily growing invisible mold on it. So I started sloshing it off with straight bleach, standing it up in the bathtub, a day before I started up his air conditioner every year in May, and his annual ghastly hacking went away. Like magic.

The kind of HEPA air filters we have are called Hunter, and I got them at Menards. The main filters cost an arm and a leg, which is why you replace the carbon prefilters more often, because it’s cheaper. Interestingly, I found that the replacement main filters are cheaper buying them directly from Menards than ordering them online from Hunter. I have no idea why that is.

I would spring for the biggest one you can afford. I started with one small one, and every time I’ve added one I’ve gone for a bigger model, and I wish now I’d started right out with the big ones. You can’t have too much air-filtering capacity when it comes to allergens, IMO.

The carbon prefilter is a generic brand that Menards also sells; it comes as a big rolled-up sheet of carbon-y fabric-y stuff, which you cut to fit with scissors. At only $8 a box, compared to the main filters, it’s a bargain. I go through a lot of it.

Plus, because the Hunter filters have the front that pops off, and you lay the whole filter down on its back, pop the top (front) off, and lay the carbon prefilter on top of the main filter, and then put the top (front) back on, you can play jigsaw puzzle with your oddly shaped bits of leftover carbon-y fabric stuff–you just lay the tag ends out until it all looks nice, then you put the top (front) back on–so you don’t have to waste any of it.

18

[QUOTE=Mama Zappa]
She was switched to Allegra (fexofenadine) a few weeks ago because her doctor noted “she just looks allergic” (the shiners, eye irritation etc.)
[/QUOTE]

Ah…allergic shiners…I know them well. No amount of concealer will cover those bad boys.

When I was younger, I had terrible, terrible allergies. My parents tried everything…filters, sinus surgery, dust covers. The only things that ever worked for me:

  1. The neti pot. If your daughter is at all prone to sinus infections, teach her to use one of these! Sure, it seems like new agey mumbo jumbo, but my allergist recommended it, and it makes such a big difference.

  2. Zyrtec.

  3. Five years of allergy shots.

  4. Moving to a different climate.

19

[QUOTE=Galena]
Sure, it seems like new agey mumbo jumbo.
[/QUOTE]

It’s moving into the mainstream, slowly but surely–the U of M health care services is recommending nasal irrigation for allergy patients. One study: it works. Another study: yep.

20

[QUOTE=ZipperJJ]
Do you have forced air heat/air conditioning? I bought myself a central air unit along with a Trane CleanEffects air filter ($1200 above and beyond the cost of the air conditioner) and I can really tell the difference. It’s a whole-house HEPA filter, basically.
…
[/QUOTE]

We do have forced air heat/AC. Our last place did as well, and there was a whole-house air cleaning unit when we bought the place. I don’t think it was HEPA, it was electrostatic instead. Sort of amusing, in that every now and then something would arc and we’d hear a SNAP sound throughout the house (yeah, we had it checked out; apparently this was normal).

I don’t know that it helped all that much, but a true HEPA might do more. We could probably replace the regular furnace filters (disposable; we replace them every month) with a higher-caliber one, and that’s probably worth doing as a first shot, vs. spending the $$ for the system you mention. Though I won’t rule that out as a long-term option, either.