Molds, and Flowers, and Dust Mites, Oh MY!

What is Histamine?

Histamine is a substance that any allergy sufferer has knows about, but very few know what it does exactly.  You may know that antihistamines make you stop sneezing or your eyes stop itching by suppressing the histamine, but that's about it.

Histamine is a protein released by the body.  It causes two major factors in an allergic reaction, 1.)  it is part of the swelling process and 2.) causes constriction of the smooth muscles (a major cause of asthma attacks).

Antihistamines are effective at helping relieve allergy symptoms because they stop histamine from triggering an inflammation response in other types of cells in the immune system such as  leukocytes.

Reurning my Airfilter, I think

After doing a bunch of reading,   I've decided that I should go for a true HEPA filter and I'll just have to pay for buying the filters as I need them. If I really want to take the allergens out of the air, 98% probably isn't good enough. Also, there is concern if your air purifier emits ozone, it could worsen asthma.  I can't find any information on whether the envirocare model emits ozone, but they do have a warning that if you are sensitive to ions, this might not be the product for you.  The other thing that has made me change my mind is that I thought it had a UV light to kill bacteria and viruses, and unfortunately, it doesn't.

Air Purifiers 2

Well, I've had my enviracare air purifier for a couple of days now.  I'm not sure how much of a difference it's made yet.  If nothing else, there's a draft in my room from the circulating air, but I've mostly been running it when I'm not home. I'm using it on the lowest setting and its fairly quiet.  At higher settings, it is noisy enough that I can hear it downstairs, not that its so loud I have to shout, but it is noticable, especially when no one else is home.

I'll add more updates as I go along.

Air Purifiers

I've been thinking about buying an air purifier. A friend has had significant improvement in her allergies after buying the Bionaire Quietech
HEPA filter. Of course, there are a lot of animals at her house so there was a lot of dander in the air but I've also noticed a difference when dropping by to pick her up in my ability to breath. She decided against an ionizing unit because of the apparent possibility of headaches.

I am currently testing the enviracaire IFD air purifier. It has filters that you don't have to replace, but do have to vacuum occasionally. It also does a bit of ionizing, which so far I find pleasant. This is not a true hepa filter (which filters out 99.97% of offending particles) and only filters out about 98% of the mold, smoke, pollen, and pet dander. This one also has anti-microbiotical filter which I found appealing being any time I get sick, it settles in my lungs. My roommate is great, but if she's sick, I don't want to share it with her.

I'm interested to see what comes of this.