Health Moment: Indoor Air Pollution and Allergies

Does anyone in your family suffer from allergies? Do they seem to have unexplained symptoms of fatigue, trouble concentrating, headaches, itchy eyes and skin? For my kids and I, these were some of the symptoms that we experienced daily. Once I identified the symptoms, I started conducting my research to help stop our allergies. During my research I was able to find out the source of our irritation and I wanted to share some of my findings with you.

One of the causes of our allergies was popular drugstore cleaners, which reduced added pollutants into our home. I wanted my home to be clean so I used cleaners that I often saw advertized, had coupons for, or ones that were on sale. Unfortunately, the fumes were often camouflaged by fragrances and chemicals that aggravated our allergies. While cleaning, I use to cough a lot during the process because it felt like the smells were causing me to choke. After a while I understand that being cheap was a health hazard and I switched to more green and natural multipurpose cleaners like Mrs. Myers and Seventh Generation or I made my own.

Even after switching cleaners, I continued to feel some of the same symptoms, and I noticed that our home had a lot of dust. Although, I tried to dust weekly, and change our filter regularly, the build up of dust just seemed to keep getting worse. After reading a few articles online, I realized that because we have an older furnace, I need to use filters that provided better allergy control (ones that specifically said Hypoallergenic and antimicrobial Air Filters) and I need to change our furnace filter monthly, which is even quicker than the recommended time frame because we use the heat/air conditioner regularly. Thankfully, these changes really helped us get a handle on our allergies.

One of the last measures I took to keep our allergies at bay was purchasing an energy-efficient air-purifier. The air-purifier has really come in handy to help improve our indoor air quality. The infographic below is a great quick resource tool that can help you find allergy causing pollutants in your home as well.

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Reader Question: What are some ways that you help reduce your family’s allergy sympoms?