It’s a heartbreak common to many families: someone develops an allergy to the family dog or cat, and it’s up to Fido or Fluffy to hit the road.
When I was five and my brother was three, we were both found to have some severe allergies. Not just to pets — though we were both highly allergic to dogs and especially cats — but to pollen, mold, dust, air, water, pretty much everything. (Okay, we weren’t REALLY allergic to air and water, but it felt like it!) We had to give up our family dog Sparky; lucky for us, he went to live next door with our grandparents for the remaining years of his life.
Studies show that about fifteen percent of Americans are allergic to dogs or cats. Many people, like my brother and I, are allergic to the dander, or dead skin shed by the animals. When we were younger, we couldn’t spend twenty minutes in the presence of a cat without turning into a sniffling, sneezing, eye-watering mess! Despite the allergy, we both LOVED animals, and eventually badgered our parents into adding a bunny to the family. (He lived outside in a three room bunny condo, to help keep the allergic issues to a minimum.)
Animals also secrete certain allergy-triggering proteins (allergens) onto their fur and into the air. Allergens may also be present in the animal’s saliva and urine. These allergens are definitely present in the animal dander, too! And animal allergies can be complicated by other allergies — if you are allergic to dust AND dander, you’re getting a double whammy with every breath.
Your allergist can test for specific allergies — like pet dander, mold, or specific types of pollen — but for best results, you will want to reduce the overall level of allergens in your environment. Just getting rid of the cat or dog won’t solve your problems.
Allergies are treated two ways: by treating the symptoms with antihistamines and by immunotherapy to desensitize you to whatever is causing your misery. My brother and I spent more than a decade taking allergy shots to help manage our allergies. After the doc determines what is making you explode into a sniffling snot monster, they make up a special blend of allergens to train your body to respond better to them. Weekly shots progress to bi-weekly, then to monthly. Eventually, your body becomes better able to fight the allergens that make you so miserable.
Allergy shots don’t cure your allergies. They make you less sensitive. Eventually, you may grow out of your allergies entirely… or grow into new ones. I have definitely grown out of my allergies to dogs and cats (even better than my brother did, nyah nyah!)