allergy skin test etc update.

Howdy!

Join the club, it's a very large club, Kathleen.

Amazing how many products are available as subs for wheat, including for baked goods; most mass-producers just don't take the time to use the alternatives, including rice, amaranth, barley, buckwheat, corn, potato, quinoa. Most are easily available, esp. at Whole Foods Market and H.E.B.Central Market over there on I-30 at Hulen.

And just down the highway from Central Market is the Cabbage Rose Quilt Shop. There's method to this madness.

Good luck!

RagmopSandy

YIKES!! ((((HUGS))))

I'm still waiting on seafood and grains however the challenge of adjusting my house so I won't suffer quite as much will keep me occupied for a long time to come!

It's the same reason food has soo much sodium in it .Money!Wheat is probably(I haven't checked) way cheaper than those other ingredients.

Jessamy,

I'm also allergice to dust mites (among many other horrid but naturally occuring parts of life -- including anything with fur and/or feathers). As a child at age 7, I was forced to remove as many allergens from my daily life as possible without living in the complete plastic bubble. As an adult, I do more treatment than prevention based on my life style

-- I do the allergy shots and medications as a first line of defense most days -- every so often I pursue other preventive measures if I think I can maintain them. Moving north has done wonders for my allergies -- as has moving to a house where there is only carpet in 1 room instead of an apartment where I was required to have carpet in all the rooms but the kitchen and bath. Thankfully, the house I spent my formative years in as a child had hardwood floors (as do the majority of my rooms in the current rental).

Good Quality plastic/vinyl zippered covers for mattresses, box springs, and pillows (under the pillow cases of course) helped immensely when I was a child.....as did replacing the covers of my heating vents in my room with several layers of cheese cloth (to be changed frequently). One of the preventive measures I still use as an adult is higher quality furnace filters specifically designed for people with allergies

-- and we change them frequently when the furnace is in use. All my bedding (and my curtains -- which were homemade) had to be washed in HOT HOT HOT water to kill off any mites that moved in between washings.

The family dog was barred from my room and mom took over doing all the cleaning of my room (probably why, to do this day, I'm a lousy lousy housekeeper -- by the time my allergies were under control, other issues were happening in our lives and I never got that "instruction"). She used to ship me off somewhere for a weekend or week (if camp) towards the end of summer each year and wash my walls down thoroughly, rearrange my room and do a super dooper deep cleaning. I never knew what I would be coming back to in my room -- some years I came back to a room painted as well. I also did allergy shots regularly from age

7-19 (with the exception of one 6 month period between insurance coverages or for something similar), until they started doing me more harm than good. A few years later, I needed them again and went back on them and have been on them since.

There were food allergies to eliminate and whatnot as well during that time....those, I have, thankfully, appeared to have outgrown.

When you clean around the house and do yard work, wear a filter mask over your nose and mouth. As hot and stuffy as those can get, it really does beat sneezing and wheezing one's fool head off. A few things for outdoor allergies:

1. CLOSE THE WINDOWS during pollen release times of the day (for us that is usually so early in the morning that windows are almost always required to be closed overnight -- which doesn't go over well these days) and whenever you can hear a lawn mower, even in the distance -- it helps to keep the outdoor allergens *outside*
2. If you've been outside for a signifcant amount of time or near things you are allergic to (i.e. out cutting the yard or working with flowers in teh garden, etc.) hit the shower IMMEDIATELY and don't forget to rinse your hair as well. Hitting the shower right away and rinsing your hair again helps keep outdoor allergen contamination to a minimum. I used to hate when my mom made me hit the shower after a long day outside when all I wanted to do was sleep but doing so kept the outdoor allergens from getting into my bed and on my pillow case. Make the boys do it too -- they can track in the pesky things as well as you can (in the summer, let 'em hose down outside the door *snicker* seems like less of a chore for them that way)

Just a few tips from one who has been there....

Tricia

-- got a big deal job > well despite the discomfort there was no result for the allergy skin test -

thanks Larisa!

I hope poor T is better soon!

as I have central heating (radiators) I don't have to worry about furnace vents :-)

I am going to lash out and buy a 4" top mattress Swedish style and put that into the mattress cover. my 100% cotton anti allergy pillow will be washed every 10 days or so so should be ok without a special cover - my old pillow was 18 years old at *least* and I stopped washing it as it lost it's shape and took weeks to reshape it.

I boxed up more of my stash last night - and ran out of plastic tubs so I will have to go to the shops again on Monday for more but maybe I will wait and see what I need before buying more there isn't all that much left to do. when the stash storage area is empty I can start moving the books and magazines to their new home in the landing in the attic. then I have to empty my bedroom and rip out the carpet and prep the floor for the vinyl and repaint the bedroom (yay I *so* want a new colour in my room!)

good luck with your allergy friendly revamp!

I don't know what the "Swedish Style" mattress is, but I bought one of those memory foam mattress pads a 3" I think. It is really nice. I have it under an allergy mattress cover. What a job, it takes my sister and I over an hour to take it off to wash. And then to put it back on. I wish now I had bought one that just slips over the top of my mattress. The one I have is like a sack you put the entire mattress in. I am thinking about cutting the bottom off and converting it to the other kind of matress cover. It would get washed a lot more often.

it's a mattress you put on top of your "real" mattresses - I do intend on using the sack type of cover - I'm used to putting covers on my comforter (and sofa) so it won't take so long to wrestle it on I do know that open covers don't reduce the mites as much as the sack type

They wouldn't.....the suckers could still get in the bottom -- one of the purposes of being encased in plastic/vinyl is to help suffocate what is in there as well as make it easier to keep them out.

T.