Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Allergy - Seven Steps Towards an Allergy Free Home

1. Take your shoes off when you enter your home. Pesticides, pollen

and more can get on your shoes and then be transferred to carpets.

2. Idle your car in the driveway or street if you must. Never idle a car in an attached garage! Fumes can seep into the home. Install a carbon monoxide detector in the closest room to the garage for extra safety precautions.

3. Smokers can smoke outside. Smoke travels through a home, so smoking in one particular room is not a healthy alternative. Chemicals from cigarette smoke can remain in an environment for up to 10 years. Smoking in one room of a house is like asking to swim in the un-chlorinated side of the pool. It just doesn't work that way.

4. Use non-toxic cleaning products instead of chemical brands. Toxic ingredients to avoid are chlorine, ammonia, methylene, chloride, phenol, formaldehyde, cresol, and xylene. The fumes from these products can stay on surfaces for days until you absorb them into your skin or breathe them into your lungs. Toxic cleaning products is the #1 reason children end up in emergency rooms.

5. Never mix household cleaning products. The combination of chlorine bleach with an ammonia cleanser. It will give off a toxic gas that is a severe respiratory irritant.

6. Do not let pets in the bedrooms. All pets have dander...and it can be an allergen. We usually spend 6-8 breathing in the bedroom. Keep the bedroom as allergy-free as possible! An air purifier would be a bonus here. Your body needs a chance to rest without having to fight to breathe at the same time!

7. Cover pillows and mattresses with 100% cotton pillow and bedcovers. They are more breathable and product less allergens than plastic and polyester.

We can't choose when we want to breathe. We have to breathe every minute of the day. Shouldn't we be able to breathe clean air indoors?

If you'd like more Healthy Home Tips, then contact Debbie Mumm at www.healthy-environments.com. Her booklet, 6 Dozen Healthy Home Tips, is now available. It makes a terrific New Parent, or New Home gift! Debbie Mumm lives in Grayslake, IL and has been an Indoor Air Specialist since 1996.

Article Source:http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Debbie_Mumm

Allergy - Natural Allergy Cures - Which Is the Best?

I have spent most of my life taking pills, using nasal sprays, and puffing on inhalers to try to help combat my allergies. If I stopped these treatment, I would become sick within days. The itching, the coughing, the runny nose, I just couldn't take it. I didn't want to take the pills, but I didn't think there was another option.

Well there is, there are many natural allergy cures that you can try. Instead of treating the symptoms, these usually help treat the problem, making you feel better with few to no negative side effects. Many of these natural allergy cures will also help other health problems you might have.

Juices

A good method to naturally cure allergies is to (perhaps drastically) alter your diet. A five day juice fast, followed by a high fruit and vegetable diet can help reduce allergy symptoms. Drinking a mixture of carrot, beet, and cucumber juice every morning can also help combat symptoms (mix at a 3:1:1 ratio). You could also try squeezing lime into a glass of water (or a juice mixture) every morning.

Yogurt for Allergies

If you suffer from hay fever, eating yogurt on a daily basis can be an effective treatment. Eating foods with nutrients like B5, pantothenic acid, and vitamin E can also help improve your symptoms. Or you can simply take daily supplements of them every morning. You should also avoid eating a lot of processed food with artificial flavors and preservatives. Other no-no's are alcohol, coffee tea, cola, milk products, and tobacco.

There are many supplements you can take to improve your allergies. Many of these supplements allow the body to work properly, and therefore the body naturally cures allergies itself. If you're treating allergies by drinking fruit or vegetable juice in the morning, you can mix some castor oil in there to further combat symptoms. This is helpful if you have intestinal or nasal allergies. Other supplements you can try are quercetin, which helps stabilize histamine production, and tumeric, which is an anti-inflammatory.

Reprogramming your Triggers

There is another natural allergy cure that requires you to take no medicines, supplements, herbs, nothing! Allergies are caused because your body's defense system is attacking harmless substances it believes to be harmful. This cure assumes that your body attacks these harmless substances because the brain is "programmed" improperly. The treatment includes therapy to "reprogram" the brain to not attack these substances anymore. A quick internet search can be done to find therapists who perform this kind of treatment.

Hopefully all these natural allergy cures have given you ideas on how to relieve your suffering without medication. And unlike pills and sprays, these cures can be combined without fear of interaction. That way, you may be able to get rid of all your symptoms without having to deal with a treatment that just doesn't work well enough. Good luck and stay healthy!

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