Posts Tagged ‘six hours’

If you or your child are allergic to your pet, you should really find it another home. But a survey in the United States showed that more than a third of people with cat allergy still keep their cat - so there is detailed advice below for those who want to keep the pet, as well as those who decide to part company.
Often people with severe allergies find that, although they miss their pet badly at first, the vast improvement in their symptoms makes that difficult decision seem like a good one in the long run. Finding a home for an adult pet is often difficult, as most people want kittens or puppies, but try advertising locally, and explaining in your ad exactly why the pet needs a new home. Family and friends may be happy to help by offering your pet a home. Ask around among your older neighbours too – they may value having a mature pet that is calmer and already house-trained.
Cats
You can’t see cat allergen – many people wrongly assume that it is cat fur that is allergenic, or flakes of skin. The main allergen is a protein found in the sweat and saliva of the cat, which wafts about in the air in microscopic specks. These lightweight allergen particles are carried throughout the house.
So small are these particles that they remain airborne for six hours or more, however still the air. If they do finally settle, they are easily made airborne again by the least little breeze. Simply walking around a room is enough to disturb them.
Parting with the cat
After your cat has gone, there will be allergens everywhere – on and in the armchairs, sofas and cushions, on shelves and lampshades, in the carpets and even stuck to the walls and curtains. They will also be inside the mattress if the cat once slept on the bed, and will shoot out every time you lie down.
Once the cat has gone, air the house very thoroughly to shift all the allergen that is just hanging in the air. Wait a couple of
weeks, and see how much your symptoms improve, before going further. If you still have troublesome symptoms that are worse at home, then you need to:
• Buy a high-suction vacuum cleaner that retains allergen particles (these are marketed for dust mites – make sure it is a good one) so that you can vacuum your furnishings without redistributing the allergen everywhere.
• Wash anything that can be washed: duvets, sheets, curtains, loose covers, cushions and their covers, duvet covers, pillow cases, bedspreads etc. Cat allergen is not affected by heat, so a cool wash is as good as a hot one – but you must wash all the allergen away, so run the rinse cycle twice. No one knows if dry-cleaning removes cat allergen.
• If the cat ever slept on your bed, then consider buying new pillows and duvet. Covers designed for dust-mite avoidance (see p. 115) are an alternative option. They will keep some of the cat allergen from escaping into the air, but not the very smallest particles.
• The seat cushions of sofas and armchairs can be sprayed with tannic acid or a polysaccharide (see box on p. 116) to deactivate the allergens. Vacuum clean very thoroughly first to remove as much allergen as possible, then spray repeatedly for a few weeks or months.
A clean getaway
The allergic individual should go out while this work is done, and stay out for at least six hours afterwards (see p. 109).
The size of the allergen particles
Cat allergen is the tiniest allergen - most of the particles are less than 2.5 microns, and the smallest may be only 0.05 microns. (A micron is a thousandth of a millimetre.) You would need a really good dust mask or HEPA air filter (see pp. 108-9) for these particles. It probably won’t remove the very smallest particles, but will certainly reduce the allergen load.
Even after the cat has gone, and you have cleaned up meticulously, you may still sometimes have symptoms. Unfortunately, cat allergen is carried about on the clothes of cat-owners and gets into schools, cinemas, buses, banks and even the padded seats in hospital waiting rooms. However, only the most highly sensitised people are affected by these low levels of allergen.
Keeping the cat
Bear in mind that keeping the pet will result in significant continued exposure however hard you try with the methods described.
• Improve the ventilation in your house as this will reduce the amount of allergen in the air. If your house is tightly sealed against draughts at the moment, this will actually make a huge difference. Air the house regularly. Always keep a window slightly open whenever the cat and/or the allergic person is indoors. You could use a HEPA filter to clean the air, instead. These work fairly well for cat allergens because these are very small lightweight particles which easily become airborne, so there is quite a lot of allergen in the air most of the time. Of course, an air filter cannot do anything to protect you from a cat sitting on your lap (though advertisements have sometimes implied that they can!).
• Put the cat outdoors when it begins washing itself, as this generates a lot of airborne allergen. Provide the cat with a shelter outside where it can sleep and wash, to reduce the amount of allergen in the house. Make it as warm and comfortable as possible, feed the cat there, and provide a little catnip to make it more attractive.
• If your cat is still allowed indoors, remove all soft furnishings and fitted carpets. Buy leather- or vinyl-covered armchairs which can be wiped clean of cat allergen.
• Keep the cat out of the bedroom entirely. If it has been in the habit of sleeping there, wash all the bedding and buy new pillows. The mattress and duvet should be replaced or covered with anti-mite covers (see p. 124).
• If you have an un-neutered tom, consider having him neutered: the amount of allergen produced declines when male cats are neutered.
The following measures are sometimes recommended, but in fact they don’t work:
• treating the cat with acepromazine, an animal tranquilliser
• using a spray called Allerpet-C, which, so it is claimed, reduces the amount of allergen released. Scientific trials by a research group in Detroit have shown that it does not work.
• giving the cat a shower - i.e. drenching it in water. After a cat has had such a shower, the washing water contains a lot of cat allergen, so everyone assumed that this meant less cat allergen in the air. New research shows that the amount of allergen in the air around a cat after showering is no less than before. However, actually immersing the cat for three minutes followed by rinsing in clean warm water does reduce the allergen level in the air considerably. Unfortunately, the cat probably renews its stocks of allergen very fast, as a washed dog does (see below), so you need to repeat the wash at least once a week to reduce the allergen level in the air.
Dogs
Most of the advice given above, for cats, applies to dogs too because their allergens are also small and lightweight. Dogs produce less allergen than cats, and it seems to be less potent. However, you would still need to clean up thoroughly after the dog has gone, assuming you decide to find it another home.
If you decide to keep your dog, HEPA filters can be very useful, although you need also to take other measures, such as excluding the dog from bedrooms and keeping it outside for more (or most) of the time. Washing dogs thoroughly in a bath, using dog shampoo, reduces the amount of allergen in the air, but it builds up again to its former level within three days. You would need to wash the dog twice a week to achieve a useful reduction in allergen levels.
Other pets and domestic animals
Horses produce very powerful allergens, and those with allergies to horses are often so sensitive that even clothing that has been worn while riding and then brought indoors can elicit symptoms. Old furniture or mattresses stuffed with horsehair can sometimes cause problems too.
In the case of small mammals, such as mice and guinea pigs, it is usually the urine that causes allergic reactions. Proteins in the urine become airborne, and are carried around the house. You may be able to keep the pet if it is in a well-ventilated utility room or caged outside.
With snakes, lizards and other reptiles the allergens are found in tiny skin particles that float in the air. The same is true of stick insects and other insect pets.