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.