… is it possible to develop one? I have lived around cats and other animals all my life and never had a problem, but lately when my cat Bert, a Maine Coon, gets into my bed or onto my lap, I start sneezing violently, so that’s why I am asking.
Thanks
Q
I don’t remember having an allergic reaction to cats until I was maybe 15 or so. I did not have a lot of exposure to them, but an elementary school friend had cats, and I used to spend the night at his house with no problem. Nowadays my eyes start watering within an hour if I’m in a house with cats.
Well, even though anecdotes don’t usually count as cites, I know several people who lived with cats for years and later developed allergies towards them.
So I’d say yes.
I also know someone who IS allergic to cats, but after twenty-five years of living with them exhibits few, if any, symptoms.
Take that as you may.
Yes, you can develop it.
I grew up with cats in the family and had no problems with allergies until around 12 or 13. This coincided with the onset of asthma, but the cat allergy issues are definitely separate. The allergy peaked for a few years and has somewhat subsided. I can be in the same room as a cat with no problems now, but if I touch a cat and then my eyes or nose… ugh.
Allergies can go both ways. You can have them as a child and grow out of them as an adult, or you can not have them as a child and get them later in life. I was allergic to a lot of things as a child and very few of them bother me now. A friend of mine is going in the opposite direction, becoming allergic to a lot of things when he had few, if any, allergies as a child.
It’s also possible that only certain breeds bother you. Of our four cats, only one really bothers my allergies.
I’m the same way. Cats were one of my last allergies to disappear. I’m still not completely “cured” of them but they don’t bother me like I used to. It seems to me that living with them for about 5 years is what really made the difference.
It’s really not that surprising to me. The “cure” for bee sting allergies for example is repeated injections of small doses of bee venom. Repeated exposure does seem to allow the body to develop a tolerance and stop the overreaction that is an allergy.
It’s also possible that what you’re experiencing isn’t a true allergy, but an irritation. It’s like pepper: People aren’t actually allergic to pepper, it just makes us sneeze because the shape of the ground pepper particles mechanically irritates the nose. Cat hair can have a similar effect, even if you’re not allergic to it.
I have and it’s not fun. I didn’t when I was a kid, most of my aunts had cats and I can remember waking up from a nap when I was being babysat with a little orange kitten on my chest purring. I wanted it so bad, but at the time my parents didn’t care for cats and I got a big fat no.
Because we moved away from family, I never really had that much experience with cats. At a friend’s house in high school, I was gently petting her cat. She told me, “Stop, she doesn’t like that!” Me:“What?? She’s wagging her tail!”
Wagging and lashing are two different things is turns out. <sigh>
So, kept away from them b/c I couldn’t (obviously) read they’re body language. Then I went to go play a game of Trivial Pursuit with a woman that I worked with and her daughters when I was in my twenties. A trailer with three chainsmokers and seven cats. I left there with blood red eyes and have been allergic since.
Now my parents have a GORGEOUS cat and I can’t pet it or play with it, and all it wants is to be petted and loved on. So I live on antihistamines when I visit, and watch it be petted from afar.
(Really it’s so pretty, it’s like the Just So Stories–short haired black cat with a sticky up tail and gold eyes.)
But, on the yay side–the last time we visited I only took the allergy pills once and I was okay–so maybe I’m working my way out of it.