Breathe Easy Series

Untitled Page

Fight the Triggers

If you or someone you know has allergic symptoms or asthma, you are sensitive to “triggers,” including particles carried in the air. These “triggers” can set off a reaction in your lungs and other parts of your body.

By Inland Empire FamilyPublished: April, 2006

If you or someone you know has allergic symptoms or asthma, you are sensitive to “triggers,” including particles carried in the air. These “triggers” can set off a reaction in your lungs and other parts of your body.

Triggers can be found indoors or outdoors.

They can be simple things like:
   1    cold air,
   2    tobacco smoke and wood smoke,
   3    perfume, paint, hair spray, or any strong odors or fumes,
   4    allergens (particles that cause allergies) such as dust mites, pollen, molds, pollution, and animal dander - tiny scales or particles that fall off hair, feathers or skin, and saliva from any pets, and
   5    the common cold, influenza and other respiratory illnesses.
   •    If you or your child has asthma, you may very well be able to add more triggers to this list. It’s important to learn which triggers are problems for you. Ask your doctor to help. Your doctor may suggest that you keep an asthma diary or get skin testing to test for allergies.

   •    Finding triggers isn’t always easy. If you do know your triggers, cutting down exposure to them may help avoid asthma and allergy attacks. If you don’t know your triggers, try to limit your exposure to one suspected trigger at a time. Watch to see if you get better. This may show you if the trigger was a problem for you.

Controlling the home environment is a very important part of asthma and allergy care. Some general rules for home control for all members of the family are:

   1    reduce or remove as many asthma and allergy triggers from your home as possible,
   2    use air filters and air conditioners (and properly maintain them) to make your home cleaner and more comfortable,
   3    pay attention to the problem of dust mites, especially in the bedroom of your asthmatic child, and
   4    select a vacuum cleaner that exhausts particulates outside the home or a model with high-efficiency filters such as micro filter or HEPA media, good suction, and sealed construction.

To learn more, please call 800.LUNG.USA.

The Orange County American Lung Association

Print This Article

Email This Article

RSS Subscribe