How to Live with Allergies and Pets?

If you suffer from allergies and live with pets, the first recommended step is to identify your specific allergens, as while you may also have an allergy to your pet, eliminating other allergens from your environment may also help to improve your allergy symptoms. This can be done through an appointment with an allergist, which will also result in other options to minimize allergy symptoms that will likely be more effective than over-the-counter antihistamines. Your allergist may have some recommendations that will help to minimize your allergies as much as possible if you want to figure out how to live with the pet to which you suffer allergies. Maintaining a clean household including regular vacuuming, hard floors, and the addition of an air purifier will help to minimize the amount of pet dander that is floating around in the house, providing increased allergy symptom relief. Grooming your pet regularly will also help with allergies. Another option to make living with an allergy-inducing pet is through immunotherapy to build up a tolerance to your allergens.

One of the most effective ways to build up a tolerance for your pet’s allergies is through immunotherapy, also commonly known as allergy shots. They work very similarly to vaccinations in that a very small concentration of your specific allergen (in this case, the dander of cats, dogs, etc.) will be administered on a regular basis, most often starting with once every week, gradually building in both quantity and concentration to allow your body to slowly be desensitized to the allergen. This process can take several months to multiple years before the tolerance is completely built-up, and often requires maintenance shots performed monthly or less frequently, if possible, but provides significant long-term relief from allergy symptoms. This is one of the only long-term options that allow people to continue living with their pets or just general allergies comfortably.

Suffering from allergies long-term can end up having several negative impacts on your overall health such as causing chronic fatigue, as you are unable to get a good night’s sleep due to allergy symptoms keeping you up late and waking you up throughout the night. Long-term effects will also include a weakened immune system since your body will be spending so much energy attacking the allergens that it can make you more susceptible to suffering from other bacterial or viral infections that you would otherwise be able to fight off. Ongoing, severe allergy symptoms can also continue to worsen, leading to serious symptoms including regular or chronic sinus infections, upper respiratory infections, and asthma. Living with allergies can make day-to-day life incredibly uncomfortable, and minimizing allergy symptoms as much as possible through medication or immunotherapy will substantially increase your quality of life, improving your productivity and health in the long-term as well.

Pet allergies are most likely caused by an allergic reaction to the proteins that are found in the dander (dead flakes of skin), saliva, or urine of the animal. Pet dander can be released into the air through shedding, making it common for people with pet allergies to have worsened reactions if the pet sheds quite a bit or is not sufficiently groomed. The most common pet allergies are to cats and dogs but can be triggered by almost any animal with fur. Some people may only be allergic to one animal, but it is common to have allergies to several animals. When someone has an allergy to an animal, the allergy symptoms can be triggered by exposure to the protein to which the person is allergic, as the immune system is hypersensitive to that protein; the immune system then goes into attack mode, creating antigens to fight off the allergen. This causes a variety of allergy symptoms as our bodies try to remove any presence of the allergen from the body as quickly as possible. For more information, please contact us or schedule an appointment online. We serve patients from Lawrenceville GA, Atlanta GA, Conyers GA, Suwanee GA, Duluth GA, Grayson GA, Decatur GA, Brookhaven GA, Lithonia GA, and Covington GA