The Mrs and I seem to be be affected by Rhinitis type symptoms. We've both been to the Doc about it, but I'm a bit concerned that it may be environmental. It's only been affecting me more recently, but I'm been a hayfever sufferer for a long time.
I've ordered a humidity meter, but am curious to know about humidifiers/dehumidifiers, purifiers and ionisers. Most of the stuff I've seen online is from folk who sell them, so I'm interested in hearing about scientific studies [regarding ionisers, etc] and any real world experience allergy sufferers amongst the STW massive may have.
Real world experience - cut the grains from your life. Cured me of eczema and hay fever.
Tough though, no bread/rice/porridge/cake/beer etc. Having hands that don't look like I've put them through a thorn bush all the time in winter, and losing the permanent nose drip in the summer is worth it.
No science to back it up though.
This ^^ , drink lots of water. and quit dairy foods
Rather than just guess what the symtoms are you could try and get an allergy test. Easy if you have private health insurance, virtually impossible on the NHS but worth waiting for. My GF got one and found out it was a protein in milk and a few other ones related to pet hair and dust. A decent anti allergen vacuum and cutting out milk did wonders.
Not sure I'd recommend it but do your symptoms go away if you take hay fever tablets? That would be a good indicator you are allergic to something. Cutting things out of your diet might work but you'd be better off finding out exactly what it is as removing dairy, wheat, rice, yeast and all the other potential options leaves you with little left to choose from.
from an IAQ point of view you want the relative humidity to between 40-70% for human comfort as stated by CIBSE, anything above 60% may lead to molds and mildews though, try and keep it in the high 40's low 50's. Below 40% your mucal membranes start to dry out and this leads to generally feeling like you have a low level cold, and also makes you more prone to catching colds etc. Below 20% you will get more eye infections and feel like you have conjunctivitis.
if you go for a dehumidifier make sure you do not leave any standing water in the system for more than 24 hours as it's great conditions for the propagation of legionella sp.
Do you have any ventilation? Fan driven? With a heat exchanger?
Most houses need some way of keeping humidity down. We just use a wood burner which renews the air without needing anything mechanical whirring away. Cool air from outside is drawn in and heated which reduces the relative humidity.
Cutting things out of your diet might work but you'd be better off finding out exactly what it is as removing dairy, wheat, rice, yeast and all the other potential options leaves you with little left to choose from
Cutting grains and dairy only leaves you all fruit, vegetables, nuts, meats, fish, poultry and seafood. Not much to base a healthy diet on ? Tons of good healthy tasty choice.
New house? External environmental changes? Done any major redecoration? Changed anything else big recently?
Thanks all for the input. We've not carried out any work of any note and have been here for 5+ years.
Hayfever medication never really works IME, but I will try it to see if it helps. I do have private healthcare, so will mention an allergy test to my GP.
Some good info there Tazzy, thanks. Hadn't considered Legionella, but good to be aware of it. I'm not averse to changing my diet, for those have you who have done, is it an all or nothing approach, or will reduction of dairy consumption be worth pursuing. I'll love my cheese and rice too! 🙁
Ionizers are pointless. Fun devices, with their gentle buzzing, but useless.
Humidifiers are pretty useless unless you have a super-efficient house with almost no draughts (unlikely in the UK). The weather here rarely gets very dry.
'purifiers' just sound pointless, particularly if you have a regular (draughty) UK house. Imagine the effect of the unit you might be thinking of Vs the volume of air in the house and moving through the house.
You might have done this already, but keep a journal of your symptoms and the conditions around you. Record the environmental conditions: weather, house conditions, cleaning regimen.
After a while look at any correlation between the environmental conditions and your health. Remember correlation is not cause but then look at the things that you think might have an effect on you. Think about taking action on those.
You could consider a [url= http://www.supaprice.co.uk/p/result.jsp?ga=uk5&q=3m+respirators+n95 ]N95[/url] or smaller mask??
As a hayfever sufferer, consider the antigens you might be in contact with: pollens, fine particles (dust, animal dander etc), flour...
I've had rhinitis-like symptoms now & again. They're usually resolved by taking things away like animals, fabrics or even doing some cleaning (well, getting others to clean). They've never been resolved by adding things like 'ions', airborne water or voodoo science.
Get a HEPA vacuum cleaner; replace pillows; bin air "fresheners". As others have said I don't think ions or humidity will be the answer.
House is pretty clean/dust free. We're due to get the sofa and our one and only carpet cleaned shortly.
We don't use air fresheners. I've just cleaned out the HEPA filter in the Dyson. Supposed to be done every 6 months, oops. No pets here either. I'll look into getting the pillows/mattress covers cleaned. Both mattress and pillows are memory foam, so should be fairly mite free.
Avoiding dairy is often given as a solution to respiratory issues but IIRC has no scientific basis whatsoever