Allergic Reaction Troubleshooting

We had a very busy weekend filled with a bit of shopping, bake and craft sale, entertaining for a large group which translates into me doing a lot of extra cooking and basically just enjoying the weekend.  I woke up with that feels-like-a-cold is coming on ick feeling.  My throat was scratchy, I was feverish and my ears itched horribly all day Saturday.  I didn't feel much better on Sunday, just considerably more tired from the night before.  Mid-afternoon I had a lovely asthma flare-up, the first one in a few years.  I forgot how much fun those can be <sarcasm>.  Today has just been a blah, asthma threatening, ears itching, scratchy throat, one eye constantly leaking, itching/burning mucosal membrans, feeling to cruddy to swear, deer in the headlight perma look - in short a horrid mess of a day.  However, this is not a cold.  It is an allergic reaction and like all allergic reactions with each exposure they get worse to the point of becoming life-threatening.  The problem with any allergic reaction is troubleshooting for the cause.  The huge problem we are up against is we bought a home with all hard flooring meaning allergens have no place to hide and be slowly released.  Instead they immediately become airborn causing faster, stronger and more severe allergic reactions.

Thursday night I ran a load of laundry using the new Era HE laundry detergent my husband bought because they were out of All Free and Clear and I used what I thought was Fleecy fabric softener as the store was out of Purex.  You know I should know better!  Laundry detergent and fabric softener are two things we seldom experiment with because sure shooting one or the other will trigger an allergic reaction or asthma flare-up.  In fact, according to my allergist the worst triggers is the Tide/Downey combination and he said if you can still smell the product on your clothes, not to use it.  Today I started reacting rather strongly in the laundry room and realized the fabric softener wasn't Fleecy, it was Snuggle!  The only thing I can think happened is in our haste to get the shopping out of the way we accidently grabbed Snuggle.  I've always reacted horribly to Snuggle including an itchy rash and asthma.  One of our kids breaks out in a very nasty rash using Snuggle so we are usually very careful but I could have sworn I grabbed Fleecy.  Now I have to go back and rewash everything that I washed using Snuggle or anything that has the smell of Snuggle on it so now I have extra laundry to do :(

Compounding the problem is I know I'm reacting to the remaining pet dander in the house.  We are lucky that there is no carpeting and we have been rather ruthless at vacuuming to get as much of the pet dander as we can.  I'm vacuuming daily not only the floors but anywhere that pet dander can hide.  We don't have pets and won't have them in our home still it will take a good six months to rid our home of pet dander from the previous owners.  We have arranged to get our HVAC ductwork cleaned after our winter vacation and we have special filters on the furnace and vents that should help filter out the dander until the ductwork is cleaned.  Good gosh, can you tell I'm having a lot of fun with this one?

Garden Gnome
©2006-2011

Three O'Clock in the Morning...

Ice Statue

Mother Nature is capable of creating wonderful things. This is an ice statue she created under our furnace vent. I don't recall this happening before and am not sure if it is a good thing so called the firm that maintains our furnace and turned down the humidifier. Still I could not resist taking a picture and marveling at this creation. The photo was taken yesterday after the snow finally let up.

So, you are likely wondering at the title. The past few mornings I have awakened at 3 am and been unable to get back to sleep. This is not a good thing for me not only because of lack of sleep but because it is a clear indicator my asthma is flaring up. Why 3 am? The best I can figure is this is when the body's natural hormones are at its lowest meaning the natural levels of steroids is at its lowest. This means the body cannot keep in check inflammation in the lungs in check, a major component of asthma. Because of this the body reacts to this drop of hormones in asthmatics. I'm lucky in that this wakes me up and is a clear indicator something is triggering my asthma. But what? Since nothing has changed other than the door being open while they took the old washer and dryer out and brought in the new as well as the new appliances in general, nothing has changed. I've only been out of the house but directly into the car yesterday which is the first time since last Friday, the cold weather shouldn't be the trigger as this was happening before yesterday. At any rate I have been troubleshooting so hope to identify the problem quickly to prevent things from getting worse.

Oh a little humour in the 3 am thing: This morning I was again wide awake. I flicked on the food network and The Surreal Gourmet was on. He had three sets of triplets on the show and was featuring making recipes using only three ingredients. Do you think that was an omen?