Asthma: Hints and tips for sufferers

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Although asthma can have a number of causes, here are some tips that may help if you or someone you love is suffering from this allergic reaction.

One common denominator in most asthma is an allergy to mold and/or musty odors. The musty odor can be so slight that you cannot detect it. But your body and your allergy recognize it immediately. And so begins the wheezing, or worse, and you wonder what could be causing it.

Some people are allergic to dust as well. One theory of this writer is that often the allergy is to mold. But that dust in an infected building can also be infected with mold.

Musty odors are common in areas that have regular or occasional high humidity. This is the perfect environment for musty odors which can build up, completely unsuspected, in the summer, when blankets have been taken off the bed, folded carefully, and stored in a closet. Your closet, of course, is a nice, clean closet! The mold does not care. It can grow there just as well as anywhere else if the climate conditions are right.

This is one reason some people notice that they have asthma when cold weather sets in but not when it is warm. When it turns cold, down come the blankets off the shelf and onto the bed. In addition, the windows are closed, since it is cold outside, thus concentrating those mold spores and odors that are otherwise blown away with the open windows in summer.

So the first tip is: Do not store stacks of old papers, books, magazines, memorabilia or seldom- or never-worn clothing  in the closets in your house. Find another place. Better yet, throw out old things that you don´t use anyway. Or at least store them in a location as far as possible from where the affected person sleeps.

Wash those blankets every fall season before putting them back on the beds, whether you think they need it or not. Of course they are not dirty. But you will want to have them freshened before placing them on the beds.

More hints for asthma tomorrow.

©Arlean Kelley copyright 05/24/2009 All rights reserved. Used by permission.

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