Is Your Home Making You Sick? Banish Common Household Asthma Triggers

Does your child always have a stuffed-up nose and trouble breathing? Take a good look around your home. Indoor allergens may be causing their sniffling, sneezing and stuffiness. Read on to learn about around-the-house asthma triggers… Your home isn’t so sweet when it’s making your family miserable with asthma. Our sedentary lifestyles, air pollution and more time spent indoors where air can’t circulate are partly to blame. Your home actually traps airborne allergens, sometimes leading to a life-threatening condition called allergic asthma. The culprits are usually things that invade your home, like dust mites, mold spores, animal dander and insect droppings, says Kelly Stone, M.D., a staff clinician at National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. You can take preventative steps to keep allergens at bay. Lifescript asked experts about the most common home allergy triggers and how you reduce exposure – and the misery. The Living Room Furniture and carpeting are allergen breeding grounds. The couch: Dust mites live in upholstery and feed on organic debris - your shedding skin, for example. These microscopic creatures thrive in humid, warm conditions and furniture is one of their favorite places to hang out. Fix it: Replace your padded, stuffed or cushioned sofas and chairs with furniture made of leather, ultra-suede or wood, Stone advises. Indoor plants: House plants, especially those in damp wicker baskets, foster mold growth, according to the Mayo Clinic. Plus, the leaves collect dust. Fix it: Gardeners recommend cleaning leaves with water to get rid of pests and dust. Spread aquarium gravel over the dirt to restrict mold growth. Floors: Carpets trap dust, pet dander, dust mites and other allergens. Fix it: If you’re really sensitive to dust mites, you may have to pull up the carpet and replace it with hardwood or linoleum flooring. If that’s not possible, vacuum once a week. To limit the number of mites blown into the air while cleaning, use a vacuum with a HEPA filter, Stone advises. Don’t forget to vacuum area rugs and floor mats too. Shoes: The professional cleaning industry estimates that 85% of allergens enter your house on foot! The culprit? Shoes. Fix it: Have a no-shoe policy inside the house. Keep slippers by the door for each family member and stash some extras for visitors. Wash the welcome mat in hot water every few weeks too. The Bedroom The bedroom is the worst room for people with allergic asthma, Stone says. That’s because you log about eight hours a day in bed, where dust mites hide. Beds: Every time your children go to sleep, they’re in an allergy danger zone, Stone says. Do they wake up with a stuffy nose that fades as the day goes on but returns at bedtime? That comes from years of sleeping on mattresses and pillows that can’t be washed, he says. Don’t decorate their beds with throw pillows, fancy quilts and duvets that rarely get cleaned. Fix it: Cover your mattresses, box springs and pillows in hypoallergenic casings. Furniture: Upholstered chairs and headboards or furniture with designs and grooves are traps for dust and dust mites. Fix it: Go for plain. Simple dressers, armoires, headboards and nightstands are easier to clean. Potpourri: Your home may smell great, but scented potpourri or sprays can exacerbate asthma. Fix it: If your children are allergic or sensitive to perfume, ditch the potpourri, flowery air fresheners and candle scents. Perfume allergies “aren’t easy to pick up on… because there’s no specific test that detects them,” says Stanley Fineman, M.D., an allergist with the Atlanta Allergy and Asthma Clinic. Knick-knacks: That dream-catcher and table displaying all fave photos of the kids are a wonderful sentimental touch. They’re also dust magnets. Fix it: Remove or at least limit items that only look pretty and collect dust. Frequently clean tabletop ornaments, doilies, old books and magazines and other mementos too precious to store. Bathroom Mold spores and fungi thrive in moist, humid environments, like around the tub, shower, sink and even wallpaper. “Since it’s a living organism, mold has a scent to it, so it tends to irritate,” Fineman says. Fix it: Your best defense is cleaning regularly and ventilating the room to reduce moisture, says Chad Masters, M.D., a family physician at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla. Stone recommends using a diluted bleach solution – 1 cup bleach in 1 gallon of water – on visible mold. Other mold-reducing tips: Open windows and/or use exhaust fans to suck up moisture after showering. Check ventilation ducts routinely for mold because water may collect in hard-to-reach places. Don’t run the heating and air conditioning system if you suspect mold because it can spread, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). You may have to call in mold eradication specialists to handle mold in ducts and other hard-to-reach places. (For more tips, check out the EPA Web site.) Mold grows easily on wallpaper, so don’t use it in the bathroom, Stone says. Install tile or paint your walls with mold-resistant enamel paint instead. If you can’t bear paperless walls, remove all old layers and clean walls thoroughly before putting up a new one. Throw away the old magazines next to the toilet. Mold can grow between pages. Scrub shower stalls and tubs, particularly the grout, each week to ward off new growth. Clean or replace moldy shower curtains and bathmats often. Kitchen Mold’s often a problem in the kitchen too. But there, you have bigger creatures to worry about. Cockroaches, which are common asthma triggers, love places with food and water. Refrigerator: Mold spores from old, forgotten foods can build up in your refrigerator. Fix it: Scour it for rancid leftovers and rotting fruits every week. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recommends cleaning the refrigerator’s interior every few months with 1 tablespoon of baking soda dissolved in a quart of water. Scrub visible mold, which appears black inside a fridge, with bleach. Dish towels: Damp dish towels shouldn’t sit on countertops or the sink. A musty smell means they’re spreading mold over everything they touch. Fix it: Wash and replace them often. Sink: Don’t let dishes pile up, because decaying food attracts cockroaches. Fix it: Scrub the sink and faucets, including the spout and underside, every night to remove mold build-up and debris. Pantry: Open packages of cereal, spaghetti and other foods attract mice, ants and cockroaches. Fix it: Store all food — including your pet's — in plastic containers. Get Fido to eat during set mealtimes so you don’t leave the food out 24/7. Set traps for roaches and mice or call a pest management company to inspect. Child’s or Baby’s Room The nursery major dust traps because of toys, bedding and more. Toys: Stuffed animals and plush toys attract dust mites, Masters says. Fix it: A few are fine and cute, but don’t let your child collect piles of stuffed animals. Make sure they’re washable — launder them often too — and store them in plastic bins. Other toys and board games should also be stored in bins. Frequently clean overhead mobiles and wall hangings because they collect dust. Crib: Watch out for air vents because they could spread irritating dust particles. Fix it: If your baby cries all night because of a stuffed-up nose, consider putting a HEPA filter under the crib. But consult a pediatrician first. HEPA filters can be an expensive solution. Asthma Resources For more information on protecting your family from asthma, check out these helpful websites: Lifescript's Asthma Health Center. Lifescript's Allergy Health Center. The American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology has resources for patients and consumers. FamilyDoctor.com explains why people develop asthma and allergies. Find an Asthma specialist near you. Find out How to Outsmart Allergies. How Much Do You Know About Asthma? According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 17.5 million of all American adults and 7.5 million children have asthma, the disease that makes it hard to breathe from inflammation in the lungs and airways. Doctors say understanding how to manage and treat the disease, as well as spot the symptoms, can help a person with asthma enjoy a “normal” life.