3 Tips for Living with a Cat you are Allergic to
Every single day millions of people live with cats they are allergic to. You may have married someone with a cat (like I did) or you may have always had a cat but developed an allergy over time; whatever the reason may be, there are ways to happily co-exist with the cat you are allergic to.
Today I want to talk about three specific ways you can manage your cat allergies and minimize the misery caused by allergic reactions to your cat. Your cat might not be all that thrilled when you put these ideas into place, but they are necessary if your allergies are affected by your cat.
1) Do not let your cat in the bedroom
You’d be surprised what a big difference your allergies experience when you keep your cat out of your bedroom. When you keep your cat out of your bedroom you are able to spend 6-8 hours in a room that is – for the most part – free of the cat dander that is irritating you in the first place. This time, combined with time away from home, can sometimes be enough time away from cat dander that their cat allergies will either not be noticeable or will be noticeable to a lesser degree.
If a cat has slept on it’s owners bed for years and years, it will take a long time before they accept the fact that they no longer can sleep in the bedroom. Our cat took well over a year, but she also had spent the prior eighteen (yes, eighteen) years sleeping on my wife’s bed. She now sleeps on various blankets we leave for her in the Living Room.
2) Have someone else clean the litter box
No, this is not a “cop out” for allergy sufferers to get out of chores. Because of various reasons, such as the fact that cat feces and urine can trigger allergies, it makes sense for an allergy sufferer to avoid cleaning the litter box.
If you don’t have someone else to clean the cat box – or no one that is willing to – consider wearing a mask when you clean it. It may sound like overkill, but it can help keep out those allergy triggers that are thrown into the air in the cleaning process.
3) Keep your house – and your cat – clean
Keeping your house clean is crucial if you have a cat living with you that you are allergic to. If you have carpet, regularly vacuuming and steam cleaning is extremely important. What triggers allergies is the protein on the cat hair you find around your house. This protein comes from your cat licking and cleaning itself. If you want to minimize your allergies, you must minimize the amount of cat hair in your house.
Similar to the cat box, in an ideal world you would have someone else do the cleaning because it causes cat hair (and other allergy triggers) to be thrown up into the air. This isn’t an ideal world, though, so if you do have to clean consider again wearing a mask to minimize the allergic reaction you experience.
As far as your cat, using cat wipes like these All Natural ones from Earthbath every couple days on your cat will help get rid of some of the hair that otherwise would end up on couches, on the floor, or floating in the air.
Photo by Windell Oskay.