Well, meant to - and thought I'd posted this on BAH forum??!!

But, would love any responses anyway!!!

Been "Baking for the Holidaze" too much, apparently!!!

TNLady

P.S. Could be those Rum and Kahlua cakes I'm baking.... ;)>>>>

We moved to Atlanta last fall, after spending 10 years in Knoxville - and while we LOVED east Tennessee, our allergies were awful!! We were all taking meds, using nasal sprays and fighting headaches - yuck! Because Knoxville sits in a valley, the pollution comes in and sets a spell - until a good rain moves in. And the Smoky Mountains are bad, too - haze all the time. After we moved, even though Atlanta has poor air quality, our allergies have improved - only my older son still takes meds, no one is using any more nasal sprays. So, part of what you're dealing with is probably environmental - wish I had some better advice for you!!

I keep reading about washing out your nasal passages with salt water as THE BEST thing for allergies. Down here everyone has cedar fever, and the only people I know who have licked it are the salt water snorters. Not pretty, not fun, but if it worked? Supposedly you can even buy a special vessel for this.

New home, as in new construction? The off-gassing could be terrible depending upon the materials used. The houses here have nothing but OSB and cheap carpet.

With tighter windows, you could be keeping all of the toxins in the house.

Probably has nothing to do with dirt.

Gloria

We are just the the other way around. We moved from the North Ga Mtns (and were never sick), to Eastern N.C. and we are sick with allergies all the time. We live on the Benadryl also.

If it is a new construction, maybe it is new carpet, paint, etc...

Try changing your furnace filter. Could be lots of things with the home. Make sure you get it checked for radon (shouldnt have your effects) and have a co2 detector.

Sue_36 posted a similar problem in the Home Building forum.
Something like "How do I get the dust out?" She's in MAINE!

How have you made out?
Your post is over a year old and I was wondering if it got better, you found the problem or moved?

You say that a boiling kettle on the stove seems to help. That tells me that some of the problem may be due to low humidity, which is known both to aggravate allergies and to to make asthmatic conditions much worse. I know from experience because I've had both of those problems. Keeping the humidity up has been a huge help.

You can buy a cheap hydrometer and use it to measure the relative humidity in your bedroom because that's the critical room to keep more humid. One hydrometer in each bedroom would be a good idea.

If you're getting readings below 40% (and they may be as low as in the teens if your house isn't humidified), you should either put room humidifiers in each bedroom (they're cheap these days and work very well) or consider adding a whole-house humidifer to your HVAC system if you don't already have one. If you do have one, turn it up to the max.

Keeping the humidity up might not solve all your health problems, but believe me, it t will make you much more comfortable.

Interesting thread- how did I miss this a year ago?

My mother and I were talking a few months back about the materials used in new housing construction- after she went to visit my brother in his huge, new house that is all cheapo materials. She complained that everything from doors to counters was plastic. I've been very interested in some of the stuff that's out there lately about various components of plastic being hazardous to the immune system. I got rid of my chronic hayfever about 10 years ago by putting myself on a regimen of vitamins and supplements for a couple of months- said goodbye to a lifetime of hayfever so am convinced that the immune system may play a bigger role than it's given credit for. Who knows how or if all those plastics play into that type of thing.

Some of it can also be the landscaping done in new construction areas. Back in the good old days, whatever grew was what grew (think of the farm), now so much of what is planted is well cultivated and is often a male tree that looks prettier than a female tree, or may be less messy, but spends a great deal of time spurting pollen hither and yon.

Humidifying is great not just for the linings of the nasal passaged, but also because dust mites don't do well with higher humidity. Rinsing the sinuses with salt water like someone else suggested is also a great thing to learn- I learned to do it with a shot glass and have cleared sinus infections very rapidly that way.

Yes, this is interesting as I noticed something similar when I had my roof replaced and put new decking. It is a lot better now so I guess any off-gassing is gone now a couple of years later. Though in our case it was worse with higher humidity.

Also my understanding is that dust-mites are higher with humidity and not low humidity. At least that is what my allergy doctor told me and I tested positive for those and I do feel worse on high humidity days.

lyfia

You don't want high humidity in the house, but you do want comfortable humidity. Dust mites thrive in warm houses with humidity levels above 70%. Levels that high are not comfortable for people.

Many houses have humidity readings in the teens or even lower during the winter and that's very hard on your lungs and nasal passages. A humidity level of 40-60 is vastly more comfortable and, in my case at least, has virtually eliminated both allergy and asthmatic symptoms.

I fully agree that ventilation, even during the winter, is very important.

feedingfrenzy that information is in line with the info I recieved. However, quasifish said dustmites don't do well in higher humiditiy and that was contrary to what I was told.

I've been better since moving from a single story house on a crawl to one with a full basement, and by installing a flow-through humidifier on the furnace (humidifier pad is not constantly saturated as a home for mold). The new house also is all hardwood flooring with only low-pile orientals; no carpeting.

I don't "test" allergic to anything, yet in my mid-30's, following a stressful time with a mother dying of leukemia, I developed a medicallynoted triad of aspirin sensitivity/sinusitis/asthma. (Had to take a lot of steroids until Advair was invented!)

I haven't had a serious problem with any of this since we moved five years ago. Only incident was two years ago when we refurbished our Maui condo -- drywall dusst, paint fumes, a touring troupe of cockroaches who wanted in through the new A/C opening. I'm thrilled to live where we have hard freezes!

My apologies- so right you are, here is what I found online:

"If you can keep relative humidity below 50 percent, you can reduce problems with dust mites, mold, and mildew."

I live in a very dry climate, so perhaps I was told to increase the humidity because getting a house to 40% humidity is a great challenge here. Perhaps the elevated, but not high humidity helps to keep dust and dander grounded?

Think you're too focussed on dust and dander. Moderate humidity means that the lungs and mucous membranes don't have to work so hard at trying to keep themselves moist enough to function properly. For example, your nose and nasal passages will have enough moisture to trap more airborne particles so that they don't make it down to the bronchial tubes and lungs. Breathing is easier and you're less likely to cough, have nosebleeds and catch colds. And you actually feel better overall and more comfortable.

Anyone who is especially sensitve to housedust is going to have to do more than raise humidity to avoid allergic reactions. But most of us are only slightly or moderately reactive to it and keeping a proper level of humidity will alleviate or even eliminate many allergic and asthmatic symptoms.

Allergies are funny things. They can come and go at any point in your life. But it seems that once you start having allergic problems, they tend to rapidly get worse unless you control the symptoms and/or eliminate the source(s) of the problem.

You should also try not to confuse irritants with actual allergic reactions.
Tear gas is an irritant, not an allergen. Despite the similarity in syptoms from exposure.
Many of the chemicals that remain from manufacture are irritants. They do not produce an immune reaction like an allergen.
In many cases the symptomatic treatments are the same (antihistamines, steroids, etc), but this is just an attempt to shut down the bodies response to an irritant.
As long as the irritant is present you will have symptoms.
Ventilation can decrease the concentration, and it will slowly decrease as the source ages (there is not an infinite amount of the irritant in the material).

Omg I thought I was crazy for getti g sick in my new condo. Anyhoo anyone can help me with this I am renting and may need to move out cause carpet Is shedding but landlady says it Is cause it is new and I insist I've never had good quality new or old carpet shed before also the unit is industrial style w concrete walls and ceiling somehow it seems like the concrete keeps dusting and chipping of fine cement particles. Any advise on how I can either remedy this or get out of it without having to pay a penalty? And for those dealing w allergy symptoms I'm a nurse and have bad allergies so I know best remedy is grossan pulsator it's a nasal irrigation system use sea salt up to twice a day even without allergy symptoms everything starts up in the sinuses and the asthma and cough is just an effect of Infected mucus dripping down from your nose onto your trachea. Please help me here too :)