Allergy Relief and Control

You can reduce your allergic misery if you take steps to keep the culprits out of your house.

Beware of Pollen Count

For seasonal allergies caused by plants and trees, keep windows shut and the air conditioner on. Purchase an air filter to clean out pollens, molds and dust and use a dehumidifier in damp areas like the basement. You can also reduce the amount of allergens in your house by replacing your windows with newer models that provide a tight seal against the outdoors. Home improvement companies, such as Pacesetter Corporation and HomeWorks, offer a wide array of windows that provide a superior fit to reduce the amount of air infiltration and humidity inside your home.

Ease your Allergy Symptoms Indoors

Installing wood, tile or vinyl floors rather than carpet can also ease your allergy symptoms at home. Pacesetter Corporation has a wide selection of floorings that are virtually maintenance-free so you can easily keep your floors clean of allergens. If you do have carpets, have someone else do the vacuuming or buy a machine designed to reduce dust emissions.

Minimize clutter, book collections, and bric-a-brac, which collect dust and pollens. Keep pets outside or bathe them regularly if they're indoors, and don't let them sleep in your bed. Wash your hair every day to rinse off dust and pollen, and if you've been in the yard, leave shoes at the door and wash your clothes in hot water as soon as possible.

Hay Fever, or Dust Mites?

Since many hay fever sufferers are also allergic to dust mites, "The most cost effective thing is to buy a mattress cover," advises Berrilyn Ferguson, M.D. Mattress and pillow covers can provide a barrier between you and the dust mites in your bed, where they live and breed. In addition, treat carpets with an anti-allergen spray that kills dust mites.

You won't be able to eliminate every allergen from your home, but with these steps you can make it a comfortable place even during the peak of allergy season.

Allergy Medications

Hay fever strikes some 10 to 30 percent of Americans, and more than half of them turn to over-the-counter medications instead of a doctor's prescription to control their symptoms. Pharmacy aisles are crowded with dozens of individual allergy drugs featuring various combinations of the half dozen active ingredients approved by FDA for allergy relief such as fexofenadine hydrochloride or fexofenadine hci. Drugs such as Allegra or Zyrtec are well-known brands which contain these potent ingredients.

Allergy Control Product Side Effects

Two prescription antihistamines, first touted for their effectiveness without causing drowsiness, are now known to have dangerous side effects. Seldane (terfenadine), and Hismanal (astemizole) have been shown to react with a number of other medications to cause life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias.
Seldane's manufacturer, Hoechst Marion Roussel, Kansas City, Mo., withdrew the medication along with Seldane-D (terfenadine, pseudoephedrine) from the market voluntarily last winter.

Patients taking antibiotics, antifungal medications, and some medications to treat HIV infection should talk to their doctors about the risks of taking any products containing terfenadine or Hismanal (astemizole).

Allergy Extracts

The FDA has been working to standardize the biological extracts used to test and treat patients with allergies. " Extracts prepared from natural sources such as pollens, animals and foods that trigger allergic reactions will vary in potency if they are not standardized," says Paul Turkeltaub, M.D., director of FDA's division of allergenic products and parasitology in the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. "Without standardization, each extract is an unknown. One batch could be stronger than the next. It makes it more difficult to treat patients and it also raises safety concerns."

Manufacturers are working to standardize extracts so they are consistent in potency from lot to lot. Currently, FDA has approved standardized allergy extracts for short ragweed, bee and other stinging insect venoms, dust mites, and cats.

Moreover, the FDA is requiring that eight grass and pollen extracts be standardized. "The availability of the grass and pollen extracts will enhance their safe and effective use in diagnosis and treatment of grass allergies," says Turkeltaub. Nonstandardized extracts of cockroach (an important cause of inner-city asthma), giant ragweed, mold, peanuts, dog dander, and feathers are proposed for future standardization.

No allergy extracts are approved for sensitivity to foods, latex, or chemicals such as hair sprays, perfumes or cigarette smoke.

--R.D.W