Cat Allergy
 | "My cat allergy can be quite annoying, but never enough to not have cats." |
My husband has had a cat allergy for many years but still we decided to keep the kittens that were left alone in our backyard. I really like cats. My husband likes them, too. It's just that he can't get close to them too often - at least not for a long period of time.
At the very least, he will feel physically irritated with a variety of symptoms but at the worst, a level of asthma that is life threatening.
So, our compromise was to keep the cats, but they would have to live outside.
My husband, Michael has always wondered what he got his allergy from because it came on kind of suddenly. Here is his take on how his cat allergy developed:
The only thing that I can recollect was a bad experience with a cat, when I went to Canada to visit some distant relatives when I was about 15 years old. I was traveling without my parents for the first time. I lived in Austria (Europe) at the time and so it was a big trip to take on my own.
Anyway, I only had my relatives' address and for some reason they couldn't find me at the airport. I was really freaked out as it was close to midnight when I arrived and English was not my first language. So, I finally decided to take a taxi to their house (the taxi driver took full advantage of my situation and drove me around town for more than an hour).
To put it simply: it sucked. The whole ordeal was really stressful for a 15 year old in a foreign country. When I finally did arrive, my aunt opened the door and immediately and quite suddenly, her cat jumped on me and scratched me. My nerves were already high and I was very startled in addition to feeling relieved.
Shortly after I arrived, I developed symptoms that varied between itchy eyes, heavy sneezing and runny nose. Every day when I would go out I would not have any problem, but as soon as I would get back to their house, I would have those symptoms again. I was very embarrassed because I didn't know anything about allergies at the time.
Over the years and in various other situations, my symptoms elevated to bad asthma, itchy skin and rashes in connection with cats.
Right now, if I spend too much time with the cats I generally have to sneeze a lot, have a runny nose and on some days develop some asthma. The symptoms usually disappear soon after I go inside the house and wash up though. Through trial and error, I have discovered what my limits are and what things I can do to counteract the effect the allergy has on my body.