Comment on Make me feel like a man

• Bosht@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Hair and dander allergen =[ still let my daughter get one. Every day is suffering but I make it work. Not an option for a lot of folks obviously. I do a lot…a LOT of vacuuming with a hypoallergenic filter

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  • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    My whole family is badly allergic to cats, including me, and we thought we’d never have a furry critter, but we ended up with five cats, and no allergy problems at all.

    Most doctors don’t care, and won’t bother, but ours was cool, and helped us through it, by telling us to take two different medications, with two different methods. It took some experimentation, but eventually we settled on a combination of Cetirizine (Zyrtec), and Montelukast (Singular).

    Before taking those, I couldn’t be in a house with a cat, without bad respiratory symptoms setting in after about a half hour. If I petted a cat (or dog), I’d break out in itchy hives all over my hands and forearms. God help me if I touched my neck or my eyes. I ended up in the ER over a swollen eyeball once, because I pet my parents’ cat. I would leave their house sick after every visit.

    But after taking those medications, we were able to have up to 5 cats at the same time, with no problems at all. My Siamese Mama Bear used to sleep right next to my head every night, for years.

    So research the different ways these allergy drugs work, find two that work in different ways, and start taking them, until you find the combo that works for you. Maybe just start with combo we use. It works great for the three badly allergic people in my household. They’re pretty cheap in the wholesale clubs. I started with Claritin, which works, but makes me sleepy. That taught me to take my allergy meds at night, so I can sleep through any sleepy side effects. Eventually we landed on the combo we have now, but I still take them at night. Every now and then, I wonder if I’m still allergic, and stop taking the meds for a few days, and sure enough, my allergy symptoms come back. It’s the meds, they work great.

    It’s worth a try to take them for a week or two, then go hang out with a friend’s cat, and see what happens. I personally believe that you also have to live with a cat for a while for your system to adjust to it, but you should still see a massive improvement. It should tell you if you can have a cat or not, and everybody should have a couple of cats if they can.

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    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Zyrtec is like a miracle drug for me. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a single side effect from it. It just works.

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      • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        There you go.

        If you want to have a cat or dog, but allergies are stopping you, it won’t hurt to try one or two of these meds to see what works for you. You can buy almost a years worth at Sam’s for about 15 bucks.

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    • Bosht@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Thanks for the type up! Our current cat originally had a brother but he escaped one day and never came back. I had assumed he would come back but now we believe he got hit as we live relatively close to a major highway.

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  • TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    There are certain hypoallergenic cats though. A friend of mine is allergic and has 2 Siberian forest cats. 2 huge ass long hair beautiful cats, but his allergies aren’t triggered.

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    • Milouch@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      We have a Devon Rex and a Oriental short hair, both supposedly hypoallergenic as well, but we haven’t tested it yet

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    • Bosht@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Good to know! Thanks!

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  • percent@infosec.pub ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Have you considered immunotherapy (“allergy shots”)? That was life-changing for me

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  • ShankShill@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Hell yeah

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• prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Same, but I could never blame them for that. Still love them.

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