Myth #1 If you're allergic to dogs, go short-haired. This is one that's especially common among breeders of short-haired dogs. Sounds good in theory, right? Less hair = less of whatever it is that you're afraid of. Only you may not allergic to what you think. Many people that are allergic to dogs aren't allergic to the hair, but rather canine saliva. Dogs lick themselves to get clean, coating their hair, regardless of length, with saliva, which is then on every piece of dander and hair that comes off them. Those that aren't allergic to the saliva are likely allergic to the animal's skin, which really leads you to the same problem.
Solution: The most obvious solution is avoidance, but if you're like me you adore dogs too much to avoid them for the rest of your life. The first thing you'll want to do is reduce shedding by brushing your dog once a week. This means you remove the hair on your terms, so that it can be disposed of properly and not cover every inch if your new sofa. You'll also want to make your bedroom off-limits to your best buddy. Be sure that if you have internal heating and/or cooling, you have a HEPA filter to ensure that you're not spreading dander and saliva all over the h0use. More still you'll want to vacuum regularly to ensure that dander and saliva levels are always low. Finally, there's no harm in having an outside pet. Dogs may have been domesticated for thousands of years, but that doesn't mean that your dog can't spend some time in the sun.
Myth #2: You won't develop allergies as an adult. You're born with the immune system you die with, but sensitivity can change as you age. I myself was born with an adverse immune reaction to milk, so I had to drink lactose-free milk until I was a teenager, when my sensitivity decreased considerably. I can drink a tall glass of milk now without any allergic reaction (though it can give me a bit of a belly-ache). It's normal for immune response to shift slightly over the course of time.
Solution: simply be vigilant in monitoring yourself. If you notice that you're becoming more sensitive to allergens, see your allergy specialist to get tested in order to determine what you're allergic to. When you've discovered the culprit, you can plan accordingly to deal with it. Knowing is half the battle.
Myth #3: It's the flowers that cause the most allergy problems. Nope! It's grasses, trees, and weeds that generally create the pollens that irritate people the most, not flowers. Tree, grass, and weed pollens need to be broadcasted via the wind in order to be more efficient.
Solution: Smell a flower, they smell nice.
Myth #4: If you regularly ingest local honey, you'll develop a tolerance to local pollens. I'm afraid it's not that simple. As we saw above, trees, grasses, and weeds are generally the culprits when it comes to pollen allergies. Flower pollen already has a delivery service: bees. Because bees have bee collecting and spreading flower pollen for a very long time (since the early Cretaceous, in fact) and because of that, flower pollens don't need the irritating features that are necessary for being carried a long way by the wind.
Solution: Really, you probably should eat local honey because it's important to support local growers, but if you want to get the stuff in the plastic bear that's fine too.
Myth #5: You can develop a tolerance to allergy medicines. My doctor told me this back when I was first developing allergy symptoms as a young child. Back then, it wasn't a myth; first generation antihistamines could be resisted over time. Over the years, though, antihistamine manufacturers have compensated for this.
Solution: Use antihistamines.
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