I am allergic to cats. Well, cat dander. Which is a problem considering most cast shed a lot of hair and rub the rest on anything and everything.
However, I wouldn’t mind having a cat, since I like pets, and having one that is mildly to moderately independant and can go to the bathroom without my assistance would be nice. Particularly since my last pet died when I let put him out on his leash to go to the bathroom.
Is there a cat for me? I surely won’t be using any advice soon, but perhaps in years to come.
The simplest solution is to give the cat a bath every two weeks. This will eliminate the dander. It’s not as difficult as it sounds, especially if you start off bathing it as a kitten. Much cheaper than medication.
I respectfully disagree, and so does my respiratory therapist. If you are allergic to cats, there is no sane way to share your home with a cat. It’s not just dander, it’s also the dried sweat and saliva they use to mark everything. It’s all allergenic. You’d have to vacuum the carpets and soft furniture daily, and wash down everything your little pal rubs up against. If you were also Obsessive-Compulsive, maybe you could live that way.
Cats are lovely, charming companions. If you’re allergic, though, you’ll just have to do without one.
Well, I am on allegra already - not sure if this will help with cats or not. And I do build up tolerance over time, such that my pal’s cats stopped bothering me after a while.
I was mildly allergic to cats. Then I got a cat and never allowed it in my bedroom, AND used an air cleaner in the bedroom. After a while I could let the cat in the bedroom, and then I stopped using the air cleaner. Now I have 2 cats and a dog. Maybe I was just lucky, though!
Asknott, I can see it not being a solution if you have severe allergies. Mine are very bad but we have been bathing our cat and it has helped to the point where I’m almost never bothered. The idea comes from on a Time magazine article dealing with allergies printed in the mid-90’s. For reasons unknown to me, bathing eventually makes the cat stop producing dander.
When staying in people’s homes who owned cats, they usually cleaned heavily before I arrived. Sadly, this was the worst possibly thing to do since all it did was make the dander airborne. On several out of town trips, I had to get earlier flights back because of this.
Within the last year I’ve started taking Zyrtec and Singulair for other allergies so that’s obviously helped.
My husband is allergic to cats. And dogs. And pollen. And mold. And cockroaches. And a few other things, but I digress. Now, I owned a cat before he and I started dating; thus, we have a cat.
She is a long-haired purebred. I have read that long-haired cats are easier on allegies than short-haired breeds. The hair actually helps hold the dander in or something. I have also read and been told that frequent bathing does nothing besides damage skin- both its skin and yours. Yours will be shredded and tattered, clawed and bitten through. However, what’s been recommended to me about cat baths contradicts what The Long Road suggests.
Air filters help. More importantly, like smiling bandit, he seems to have acclimated to the presence of cathood. He feels that she only aggrevates any problems he may be having with the pollen count or whatever. While he has physically adjusted mainly to her presence, he does better with all cats. He used to break into hives and wheezing within ten minutes of sitting in a house where short-haired cats live. Now, if we’re visiting cat-owners, he’ll still have trouble breathing, but much less trouble, and perhaps his eyes will swell and bag.
It can be done, but it may depend on the severity of your allergies, and you won’t know how well you’ll adjust until you actually try it. In that case, you may be stuck trying to find a new home for a little creature you’ve grown fond of. Have you considered a bird?
For what it’s worth, despite severe asthma and cat allergies, I’ve always loved the creatures enough to disregard medical advice and keep one or two of 'em. They don’t bother me now nearly as much as they used to - so my guess is that I’ve built up some sort of resistance. I’ve got no biological evidence to back that up.