Cat Allergies

[Joe ( Cold Spring on Hudson )]

Man o man I had a scare last night. We went to dinner over a friends house. In the middle of dinner I started sneezing. Then it turned into one of those nonstop marathon sneezing attacks. When I finally got that under control we were joining them in the living room to help decorate their tree. It was a nice holiday moment until I started to suffocate. :eek: I started to wheeze and I felt like I could not get enough air into my lungs. I felt like I had a plastic bag duck-taped around my head. It was a very scary feeling. All the while I'm trying to play it off and joke around. But at one point sheer panic overcame me. I told my wife I had to go I had to get home NOW. She saw the terror in my eyes and left Tess their and drove me home ( we live very close ). She dropped me off and I told her to go back up and enjoy the visit with Tess I would be OK. Then I ran to get my daughters inhaler ( she has asthma ) I took like four big hits off the inhaler and laid down on the bed. THANK GOD the inhaler worked in a few minutes I was breathing normal. I was so tired and stressed out from the whole ordeal I passed out at 7:00 pm - Hence thats why I'm up at 4:00 am posting this.

I have always been allergic to cats. Our friends have just gotten 3 cats this year. So it was like cat hell for me. But I never had such a terrifying experience. I remember when I was first diagnosed over 10 years ago. Lisa had just moved in with me and I was doing a lot of cycling then. I started going out with my riding friends and they saw me hacking and wheezing as we rode asking me if I was OK. It had not even occurred to me that the months of wheezing and shortness of breath was due to the two cats I inherited with Lisa moving in with me. So I went to the doctor and he tested me for cat allergies and I was off the chart. I was category 5 allergic to cats. I asked him ok whats that like 1-10 and I'm a 5? He said NO it's 1-5 and we don't go any further than that but if we did you would be an 11 :eek: So he put me on pills and 2 different inhalers one a steroid. Yea because ya know I was in love and and she was not about to get rid of her cats. ;) Anyway when we finally moved to this house we had a hermetically sealed mud room and we put the cats in there. One cat has passed away and the other is getting old so it's a matter of time before we are completely cat free. :D But until last night I never realized how allergic I am to cats. I felt like I was about to go into anaphylactic shock.

[ 12-08-2005, 04:31 AM: Message edited by: Joe ( Cold Spring on Hudson ) ]

[mmd]

I can sympathize, Joe - I have a pretty well-developed allergy to cats myself. Mine expresses itself as athsma.

Interestingly, the allergy potential varies from cat to cat. Some are bombs, a very few are completely benign. And the old wives' tale of,"the longer the cat's fur, the more allergenic" is just that - an old wives' tale. Most allergic reactions are to an enzyme in the cats' saliva; the cat grooms itself with its spit on its paw, thereby spreading the allergen all over itself. Presto! - self-propelled allergen bomb.

Newborn kittens do not have the enzyme in their saliva, it develops as they mature. Quite often, an allergic person will develop an immunity to the allergen if they are slowly introduced to it. If they get a kitten, by the time the kitten matures and develops the allergen in their body, the allergic human has developed immunity. Unfortunately, this immunity is specific to the one cat; you'd still be allergic to all other cats. This is how we have managed to have a cat in our home - we got Cuddles (what an awful name, but you can't deny a seven-year-old) when she was seven weeks old and promptly shampooed her mother's grooming efforts away.

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

At one point I thought that I was allergic to cats - I'm not. As it turns out I am allergic to a carpet cleaning product called "Shake 'n' Vac".