Speaker 1 00:00:03 Hello and welcome to the WBA podcast. My name is Sheena Mitchell. I'm a pharmacist in mom of three. I combine healthcare and practical advice to help you on your parenting journey. If you enjoy listening to a WBA podcast, I'd be really grateful. If you could follow or subscribe and leave a review, it really helps to support the show. Thank you. I am delighted to partner with one of my all time favorite products sale. Plus this is the world's first 100% natural dry salt therapy device. It's clinically proven to relieve a wide variety of allergens and respiratory conditions. This salt therapy method has been trusted for generations and has become hugely popular worldwide. As more and more people recognize the superb results achieved from a natural and noninvasive method. This device will help you breathe easier and sleep better today. I'm gonna be talking all about indoor allergies just when we've gotten through the summer. And we think we're free from hay fever. We have to remember that some of our allergies actually come from the indoors. The main types of indoor allergies are pet dust, mold, or even pollen allergies from indoor plants. Today, I'm gonna focus mostly on dust and pet allergies.
Speaker 1 00:01:24 The worst thing I think about a dust allergy is that it's actually an allergy to the little bugs called dust mites that live on dust. Well, dust mites are an Nate, so they're kind of cousins of spiders. The other problem with dust mite allergy is that it causes symptoms all year round dust mites love warm and humid environments. Dust mites are invisible without a microscope, but they live off tiny skin cells that are shed by people. And because places that you spend most of your time in are more heavily coated in tiny skin particles. These are the places that unfortunately dust most like to live. So think carpets, couches, beddings, no matter how much you clean, it's unlikely you'll ever be able to completely rid your house of all microscopic dust particles. Bedrooms are the worst because we actually sweat at night and dust mites just love humidity and darkness.
Speaker 2 00:02:24 <laugh>
Speaker 1 00:02:26 A dust might. Allergy is actually very common and it usually develops in childhood or adolescence. It's a, it's estimated that one in four people are affected by a dust allergy and it really affects asthmatics. Half to two thirds of asthmatics also suffer from allergies and of these 40 to 85% are allergic to dust mites, an IgE mediated sensitization. And what that really means is that it's an immune response. Your body recognizes the fecal matter from dust mites as a danger. And so an inflammatory response results. There are lots of different symptoms that any kind of indoor allergy can cause. So this is for both animal dander and dust. Anything like sneezing rhinorrhea, which is runny nose allergic conjunctivitis, which basically is runny eyes and irritated eyes. If you get any nasal stuffiness or you have an itchy nose, mouth or throat, even itchy skin, a postnasal drip, a cough probably as a result of that.
Speaker 1 00:03:35 Postnasal drip and even things like lethargy. So feeling tired and just not yourself, all of these symptoms can contribute to a poor night's sleep. Other than the common sneezing and runny eyes just might. Allergies can also cause a flare up of conditions like eczema and asthma, and they can worsen wheezing and cause difficulty breathing in some people. So for pet allergies, unfortunately, allergies to cat and dogs are also quite common, especially in people who have other types of asthma or hay fever. It's not just the cats and dogs that are getting the blame though, but being the most common household pet, they're probably the animals. Most of you are interested in, but if you happen to keep rabbits, hamsters, birds, horses, or even reptiles, these can also cause allergy pet allergies are caused by a protein in a pet saliva, urine or dander. Dander is skin particles, which shed cats and dogs produce plenty of different proteins, which are potentially causing a pet allergy.
Speaker 1 00:04:38 But it must be said that the pet dander is one of the main ones in cats. It's particularly in their saliva. And as they groom themselves by licking themselves, it's often found in their skin and fur, but it's not actually all the pet's fault. Sometimes their hair can act as a carrier for other airborne allergens, such as pollen and those lovely dust mites again, and even mold. The tricky thing about a pet allergy is that it can actually develop at any time, even when you've had a pet for quite some time, it can also even happen in school. If your child is sitting beside someone who has a cat at home, one thing I'd say about pet allergies, which actually affect us in our own house is that there's no such thing as a truly non-allergenic dog or cat. Now you might laugh at me because if you follow my Instagram, you'll know that I have two dogs and a cat <laugh> yeah.
Speaker 1 00:05:34 Gluten for punishment. We specifically chose dogs that are low shedding to minimize the chance of an allergic reaction. We also take lots of other actions, which I'll describe in a minute, which help to minimize any potential allergies resulting from our pets. Many of the poodle crosses don't shed a lot. And that means that they shed less standard. You might see that's why a lot of people over the last few years have added poodle crosses to their family. For example, in our house, we have a kava P who's, half cavalier king Charles and half miniature poodle. And our recent edition is mini. It's gonna be an ironic name because she's not gonna be very mini she's a golden doodle. So she is half retriever and half poodle standard poodle. That is, we also chose a cat, which is meant to be less allergenic than others. I'm not sure how much truth there is in that, but storm or cat is a British short hair. I reacted quite badly myself to storm when we got him first. But I actually think that a lot of it settled down after a couple of weeks, once he'd settled in and he hadn't been around the other cats that were in his litter and you know, potentially in space where he had urine on his coat and things. So once he settled in and things calmed down, I seem to have no problem now with the cat, but I'll give you lots of tips on making sure that you can minimize animal allergies. In one sec,
Speaker 1 00:07:13 A lot of people ask about how you get a diagnosis for a dust or animal allergy. And there is lots of different ways to finding out. But what I would say is don't go for a test and think because you're allergy free, you'll be absolutely fine with the dog. Do remember that allergies can pop up at any time. The first thing I'd recommend is visiting your GP. If you feel like your allergy may be spear, you can be referred to an allergy specialist. They may then do something called a skin prick test or a blood test for a specific IgE to the suspected animal. And to be honest, visiting someone's house, who has a pet is a good way to figure out if you have a problem with the animal or not. My own daughter's dust allergy, which is quite severe, was diagnosed by a skin prick test.
Speaker 1 00:08:00 I'll talk about medical treatment of these kind of allergy soon, cuz obviously it's not possible to completely avoid dust or in some situations you can't avoid animals or anyone who has an animal. So sometimes if your allergy causes quite a lot of symptoms, you just have to treat it some practical advice first though, on reducing exposure to indoor allergens. So in terms of pets, just always make sure to keep them out of the bedrooms. If you can help it, don't let them to sit or sleep on soft furnishings, such as sofas or cushions, try and make sure they have their own space to relax on their own bed. Wash the pet, be regularly on a hot wash. So about 60 degrees. If you have a pollen allergy, remember to wipe your dog down with a damp towel when he comes in from the outside. If you do find that you are someone in your household suffers from pet allergy to a pet that you have in your home and you don't want to rehome them bathing them once a week may help to reduce the amount of Dan that they shed.
Speaker 1 00:09:03 And I'd also recommend that someone who isn't sensitive to the allergen, grooms them regularly, this can help to prevent a dander buildup through natural shedding allergy proofing your home for dust or animal allergies is no main feat. The best place to start is with the most likely place for dust mites to exist. So in case pillows, mattresses, duvets in dust might covering wash sheets, pillowcase blankets, at least once a week at 60 degrees avoid woo wooer feather be and stick with synthetic anti allergen materials. If you have carpet in the bedrooms, the best thing to do would be to remove it. Obviously that's not always possible. So try and use a low pile of carpet instead of a really thick one, which can trap more of the allergen in it using hard wood or Lineo flooring is probably the best way. And then you can just pop easy wash rugs in areas where, you know, maybe beside the bed, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1 00:10:04 Now we have carpets in our bedrooms upstairs and it's just not an option to change them right now, financially. I think that's a big step for anyone. So realistically it's get the Hoover out and Hoover regularly. It's also important to get rid of clutter. So, you know, under beds and everywhere, try and move things into plastic storage boxes so that you can make sure that there's no dust settling all over your or your child things. Another problem are Teddy's really tricky. One. We had that with my daughter when we went to see the allergy specialist, she basically recommended that <laugh> my daughter should just have one or two tidies, maybe just her favorites and kind of get rid of the rest. Well, if she could see her bed now, I mean the child can hardly get into it cuz there's no room for all the Teddys.
Speaker 1 00:10:59 So it's really hard work, but she is just going through a little phase right now where she is obsessed by her Teddy bunny collection. And I can't bring myself to take them over <laugh>. So the solution to that is I have kind of a rotational system on where basically I nearly bring down a, a Teddy a day when I'm bringing down the laundry and I stick the Teddy or a couple of Teddys depending on the size into a hot wash at 60 degrees. And then I throw them in the dump tumble dryer. I know that's not very cost effective, but actually it helps to kill off more of the dust mites and allergens. And then what our specialist recommended was to push the teddies into a Ziploc bag and stick them in the freezer for a few hours. And that just makes sure that any potential allergens are completely removed.
Speaker 1 00:12:02 So it's a big, long process. And I am working on trying to reduce the number of bunny, family member, Teddy bears that she has. But yeah, you know what it's like with children it's not easy and God bless her. She, you know, she's just very attached to them. Things like curtains need to be thought about as well, use of roller blind when possible. Um, otherwise your curtains actually do need to be cleaned relatively regularly because dust really likes warm environments. Just try and turn on your Ivan in your kitchen, over the oven, get rid of some of the moisture outta the air when you're cooking for the surfaces around the house, do as much damped dusting as you can. So dusting with the dry cloth is no good. It's just basically, you know, making dust airborne or the animal down their airborne, whereas a dam cloth will actually catch it.
Speaker 1 00:12:59 And then you can rinse it off in the sink, tell your kids to wash their hands after touching the animals and do, try to keep the house at a good temperature. So between 20 and 22 degrees Celsius, I think we'll all probably be keeping it colder this winter because of the energy crisis, but that's a subject for another day. It's no harm to check the relative humidity in your house. This should ideally be kept under 50%. If you find humidity is a problem in your house, then I'd recommend using a dehumidifier regularly closing doors and windows during warm weather as well can really help because it obviously keeps out pollen. It also helps to reduce the moisture in the air and prevent mold spores. Moving on to the treatment of indoor allergens. There are lots of medical options, which I'll run through briefly. But as I mentioned at the very beginning, there is a product which has long since been one of my favorite products.
Speaker 1 00:14:00 And this is actually an ideal situation to be using it in. I'll explain how the salmon plus works in a minute. If your child's offering from allergies or indeed you yourself, I definitely recommend a daily sedating antihistamine. There's also options of using nasal corticosteroids. And if you go to your doctor, there's drugs from the family between receptor antagonists, the most common one is Montelo cast. There's also some eyedrops which are useful and sometimes the use of a decongestant maybe needed. But remember, these are never for long term use, have a listen to my hay fever episode because I discuss all of those different types of medications there and the same applies for their use in indoor allergens. There's definitely hope for the future because there is also something available called sublingual immunotherapy. So in essence, a little tablet, basically that melts in the mouth and it contains a tiny, tiny dose of the allergen in a modified form.
Speaker 1 00:15:07 So it doesn't actually cause any harm or symptoms they're available for Colin. But more recently it's available for dust might allergy as well. The name of the dust might allergy medication is at Karaza and it's only suitable for people aged 12 to 65 years. It actually takes three to five years of daily use of this immunotherapy for it to become effective. So it's a big commitment and you definitely want to know that, say if you're starting your 14 year old on it, that they're gonna keep going with it till they're 17 or 19, however long it takes, because there's just no point in, in going down that road. If you're not gonna keep up with the treatment. Currently, the immunotherapy, the oral immunotherapy is covered on the drugs payment scheme for pollen, but interestingly, not for dust in advance of recording this, I contacted the HSE to see is that going to come on board because I can't really understand how a pollen allergy is approved on the drugs payment scheme and medical card, but a dust allergy isn't.
Speaker 1 00:16:20 And they have informed me that it's under review. So hopefully fingers crossed that comes onto the drugs payment scheme and medical card. Soon you can also even just use line nasal sprays or irrigations like the nail me sinus RINs, or even stereo Mar for younger kids. But all of these options that I'm talking about are obviously medical and any of you who have kind of followed my journey so far will know that whilst I'm a pharmacist, I agree with the concept that you should only take medication when you have to. And if there is a natural way to help something, I'm all for that. And it's definitely worth the try first. And with this particular product, I have an abundance of feedback from my own customers, both in the pharmacy and online that this product has just worked wonders for their families. The product is salmon plus it is salt therapy device and it actually removes 98% of airborne allergens.
Speaker 1 00:17:31 So dust pollen, all of that, it does this by passing the air through the filter, cleaning it, and then dispersing micro crystalline salt particles, which are absolutely tiny back into the air. These salt particles are so small that they can travel in through your respiratory system and reduce inflammation all through your lungs, your nasal passageways, your sinuses. They can even help to draw mucus out of your chest. So people with allergies or any kind of respiratory condition like C O P D or asthma, anything where you have a cough or kind of chronic mucus on your chest. And also with people who suffer from sinuses, that kind of thing have a lot of mucus stuck in their airways and the salt actually draws the mucus out by osmosis. So you might notice for the first couple of days after using it, that you you're coughing a little bit more, but that's really just a sign that the salmon plus is working.
Speaker 1 00:18:37 So it's clearing your chest and it's a product that I recommend you use every single day. It's really, really easy to use because all you have to do is plug it in at night when you're going to bed. And we generally recommend keeping it somewhere close to you. So maybe like on a bedside locker, you just turn it on. It's not particularly noisy. It has a dial on the back where you can adjust the fans bead, but obviously the higher you have it, the better it is because the more sold particles are being distributed. So what I tend to do is, well, actually my children don't mind the noise, but at all, even on absolute full speed, I think it's like quite noise to them. They're just so used to, you know, we go upstairs, we put on the salon, plus we read our bedtime stories.
Speaker 1 00:19:24 You know, all of that, our whole nighttime routine kind of involves the sound of the salmon plus at this stage. So we turn it on and yeah, they have it on all night on full whack. But if you have someone like me who is really intolerant to noise at night, like actually any noise drives me demented. So what I do is when I'm putting the kids to bed, I turned the device on, in my own room and I turn it on full blast. And then obviously I go back downstairs. I have my evening, usually let's be honest, making pack lunches and tidying up and that kind of thing. And then when I do eventually make it up to bed, after watching some trash TV, my room has had the filter on for a good two or three hours. And then I just reduce it down to a lower setting so that the sound isn't quite as high.
Speaker 1 00:20:19 And then it's pretty much inaudible. And I leave at there pointing at me for the night, but I know a lot of people think it's quiet even on full sound and it's not a bad noise in that it's steady, it's a steady home. So it's not like there's anything dripping in the room or anything and try and make sure that your room isn't humid before you attempt to use it. You know, keeping your windows closed. A lot of people feel like that's contrary to normal advice because they want fresh air. But remember the salmon plus is giving you that fresh air. I'll talk more about the salmon plus as the season goes on, but I want you to know just, <laugh> one thing that I didn't realize when I got it initially for myself and my hay fever is that it actually helped my husband to stop snoring mm-hmm <affirmative> so yeah, stays on all year round now.
Speaker 1 00:21:16 Cause it reduces inflammation in the airways. It just means that everyone is getting a better night's sleep. So just to summarize everything for you, obviously you should avoid indoor allergens if at all possible, but on a practical level, avoiding dust and animal under is, you know, tricky. So I think dealing with it in a proactive way is the best thing to do. So if your child or you are having a severe reaction, definitely go to the GP and maybe they'll refer you, or maybe they'll be able to recommend medication which may help also online. We sell all the antihistamines and nasal sprays. The products you'd be looking for are things like anti hiss or lo at their S daily non-res antihistamine, Zytech liquid for children over two. And then in terms of nasal sprays, probably something just like dairy Mar or for younger kids, the Cal nasal sprays quite good, quite gentle.
Speaker 1 00:22:22 Also the nail me sinus RINs is good for bigger, bigger, bigger kids are grownups because it completely flushes out your system in terms of nasal steroid sprays, you've got loads of options. FASE Bekins and these are all available over the counter, but do check out my hay fever episode because there's a lot more detail on that. There there's nothing better than a natural treatment. And that's why I think salmon plus is definitely worth a try. We have them on offer online. You can find all of our
[email protected]. And if you have any questions, there's also a contact page on there. So drop me a line through that or through our Instagram or Facebook pages, you'll find us by searching wonder Baba and yeah, I hope this episode has given you lots to think about and lots of ways that you can help to reduce the indoor allergens that are annoying you. And I hope you breathe easier and sleep easier. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoy listening to a wonder wrap podcast, I'd be really grateful. If you could follow or subscribe and leave a review, it really helps to support the show. Thank you.
