Viewing 26 posts - 1 through 26 (of 26 total)
  • Hay fever question
  • samuri
    Free Member

    Bit of an argument going on here so looking for some consensus.

    All of us on the household get hayfever, my son is the worst. Now me, being dead butch and everything, don’t say much about it. I’ll point out that this isn’t the area of disagreement.

    My wife, now she is the biggest complainer. Everything in the world is responsible for this affliction. She is no doubt going to be the first person to die of hayfever.

    However, the argument now, is thus.

    ‘When the dog comes over, I instantly get really itchy eyes’

    I debate this point. I’m happy to agree that some people are allergic to dogs, what I won’t accept is that the instant the dog is near (and not forgetting the dog lives in the house with us all the time), it’s hugely worse.

    The reason for this debate is that if my wife wins (and obviously she will irrespective of any facts), then the dog will get locked away from us which she’ll absolutely hate. She’s very much a people animal.

    MrNutt
    Free Member

    bloody hay fever set to me this afternoon, a shower, change of clothes and piriton had done me fine until the bloody cat came in and made a fuss at me. now I’m buggered again. piriton number three n shower before bed then.

    dmorts
    Full Member

    I can suffer quite badly and am starting to think the affects are cumulative. So if you’re already suffering due to pollen, then something like dust can trigger a reaction when it otherwise wouldn’t.

    So maybe when pollen is not around, the dog has no effect. But it tips the balance if they’re already irritated by pollen.

    …or maybe I’m talking nonsense, quite tired!

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    dan1980
    Free Member

    It could be that if your dog is going outside, it’s getting covered in pollen, and when it comes over to greet you, the disturbance of his fur, and the jumping around etc. could be putting some of this pollen into the air.

    When my moggy spends the day out massacring the local rat population and comes back in and tries to suffocate me, that can make my hayfever worse. If the lazy bag of fluff has spent the day inside, then him jumping on my head doesn’t make my symptoms worse.

    organic355
    Free Member

    THIS ^^

    Dibbs
    Free Member

    There was an interesting piece on hayfever on R4 the other day (Inside Health I think) basically it said use cheap generic antihistamine (Piriton etc. are just marketing) and keep taking the tablets. Taking a tablet because the hayfever is bad today is no good, you need to have taken the tablet yesterday.

    Edit:-
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b019dl1b

    cranberry
    Free Member

    The branded medicines that get pushed in pharmacies and the generic medicines are the same – just buy online, and if things are bad take a tablet in the evening ( for good sleep ) and use a spray in the morning and afternoon for a boost.

    CountZero
    Full Member

    I’ve been suffering from hay fever for some years now, and I think it was triggered by my becoming allergic to cats, specifically a friends torty called Muffin, who moulted constantly, to almost Olympic standards. Just walking through their house from the front door to the back patio carrying a black fleece one evening and it was covered in white hairs!
    I used to leave with what seemed like a streaming cold, runny, blocked nose, incredibly itchy eyes, but I’d be fine the next day.
    Took a while for the penny to drop… 😳
    My excuse being I’d never suffered allergies around animals before, including cats, but nowadays I get it every year when the pollen comes out, so I’ve started taking Wilko’s generic allergy tabs, which are the same chemistry as Piriton.
    14 tabs for around £1.30 or so, I think, and they really do seem to help, eyes itch slightly from time to time, but otherwise, I feel a lot better than I used to.

    peterfile
    Free Member

    There was an interesting piece on hayfever on R4 the other day (Inside Health I think) basically it said use cheap generic antihistamine (Piriton etc. are just marketing) and keep taking the tablets. Taking a tablet because the hayfever is bad today is no good, you need to have taken the tablet yesterday.

    When the cetirize patent expired and generics started appearing, my doctor told me to take it all year round, or at the very least start in March. Totally changed summer for me, I went from 2 decades of being a mess to actually enjoying summer.

    It also means that I can miss a couple of days without my symptoms flaring, which is quite important for when I forget my tablets when wild camping!

    I buy 6 months worth of cetirizine for about £5, which means it’s cheaper then the fuel I’d use to pick up a free prescription.

    mikey3
    Free Member

    peterfile where can you buy 6 months worth for a fiver,i’ll stock up for next year 🙂

    slowoldgit
    Free Member

    Take the dog or cat into the shower with you when either of you come indoors. Easy-peasy.

    peterfile
    Free Member

    peterfile where can you buy 6 months worth for a fiver,i’ll stock up for next year

    Chemist Direct

    It’s £1.18 for a months worth at the moment, pretty sure it’s cheaper before each summer though.

    Postage is a few quid, but I tend to wait until I need some other stuff and buy it all together.

    I’ve used Chemist Direct for years, they are the CRC of the toiletries world 🙂

    slowoldgit
    Free Member

    I seem to remember loratidine at about £1 for 28 in my nearest supermarket. It had to be cheaper than paying £6 for a prescription. But now I’m so old I get it free anyway.

    samuri
    Free Member

    Take the dog or cat into the shower with you when either of you come indoors. Easy-peasy.

    I was in agreement until you suggested I try and get the cat in the shower. 😉

    Mounty_73
    Full Member

    Last year I learnt something new about hay fever….

    ‘Alcohol worsens hay fever’.

    slowoldgit
    Free Member

    I was in agreement until you suggested I try and get the cat in the shower.

    There’s always the last ten minutes of the tumble drier’s cycle, the cooling cycle where stuff just rolls around in the blown air. I find this good with outdoor-dried washing, it must help get rid of some of the pollen*, spiders etc.

    Two or three goes at that, and the cat might learn to prefer the shower option.

    *Seriously, for a moment, I do this with sheets and pillowcases particularly. Pollen is fine-grained and has a resin or waxy coating. You can see it stuck in quantity to car paint. It floats on puddles, forms a skin at the downwind end. It’s probably attracted to things because of static charges too.

    Bond the dog and cat into the house earth?

    alfabus
    Free Member

    last year’s revelation was steroid nose sprays.

    this year’s revelation is glasses and eye drops…. I’ve just managed to clear and dig a fully overgrown allotment plot in a heatwave without dying.

    Dave

    wildheart
    Free Member

    I’m 2 weeks into an experiment of eating local honey to ease hayfever .The thinking is that locally produced honey is made from the pollen of local flowers etc and therefore,in such small quantities, encourages your immune system to step-up to the challenge.Seems like a fair argument.
    More detail here

    so far,so good for me.

    slowoldgit
    Free Member

    Two sorts of flowers, right, those pollinated by insects, those with pollen spread by the wind. Maybe there is some overlap. One system spreads pollen around much more than the other.

    A book I’m reading suggests a medium-sized male ginkgo tree produces a trillion pollen grains.

    Did you ever see a bee finding nectar from a grass flower, or hazel or yew or Scots Pine? Those are some of the pollens that set me off. They are wind-pollinated.

    flowergirl
    Free Member

    Wildheart, happens when you go away and encounter other flowers? Or go into a place with commercially grown flowers?
    Not taking the mickey, I used to be a florist (hence my username) but Hayfever made me leave my job 🙁 and the only way I can control my symptoms is with lots of drugs!!

    slowoldgit
    Free Member

    FG – sympathy, I’ve had HF on a ship in the North Sea. Plus over time I’ve become sensitive to more things.

    slowoldgit
    Free Member

    oops, repeated post, just talk quietly amongst yourselves

    tomcanbefound
    Free Member

    Hayfever + nasty nose cold = NO FUN AT ALL!

    Re OP: My mum was like that with cats, we always had them round the house and she was fine but if they got on her lap it would set her eyes going… I know maybe not what you want to hear but from what i can tell animal allergys can be triggered by extreme proximity sorry 🙁

    FYI: Benadryl+ (the + bit is very important) are the bees knees of allergy tablets! They have pseudoephedrine in them, same decongestant as top tier flu medecine. Nothing else gets rid of the itchy nose/eyes like it.

    flowergirl
    Free Member

    Have to agree that Benadryl is the way foreword!
    Samuri, have to say that my cats will make me sneeze if they wake me up on a pollen heavy morning (jumping on my head, trying to crawl into bed, etc). But I think that’s because they’ve just come in from the rolling on the lawn, being under trees and the like. They don’t set my Hay fever off at any other time and I am mega sensitive!
    Slowoldgit, I became more and more sensitive to things, tho it seems to be getting better these days. Can’t drink red wine cos it makes me sneeze and I became allergic to what I assumed was ‘industrial’ washing powder! Couldn’t sleep in hotel sheets as they bought me out in an horrendous rash 🙁
    Really miss the red wine at times 😥

    slowoldgit
    Free Member

    Have any of you folks tried ionisers? I believe they help, though probably not with cats.

    flap_jack
    Free Member

    Paleo diet. Clears all allergies. Well, at least in my case it did. Hard work though, and currently lapsed due to 2 weeks in pain-au-chocoland.

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