Allergies Can Affect Your Budget and Quality

of Life

Have you ever considered how much your allergies cost you? Whether you are suffering from inhalant allergies or food allergies, your life has been impacted not only physically and emotionally, but financially.The April 2002 issue of “Annals of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology” contains a study from Emory University that addresses the high cost of allergies. By reviewing past studies, the research team, led by Stanley Fineman, M.D., discovered allergies not only caused a financial burden but also affected a person’s quality of life.

“Because allergic rhinitis influences many aspects of daily living, it is important to be diagnosed and treated properly. Physicians’ and patients’ education will increase their awareness and signs and symptoms of allergic rhinitis,” Fineman concludes from the findings.

Financial Burden
The cost of medications and preventative measures puts a strain on any household budget. Stop to think how much you spend on ways to help reduce your reactions. Listed here are items that can destroy anyone’s budget.

Medical care — Doctors visits, allergy tests, over-the-counter medications, prescription medications, vitamins, supplements, and facial tissues. 

• Preventative measures — bedding encasements, air purifiers, air filters, replacing carpet with other flooring, specialty foods, fragrance free products, and the list could go on forever. 

Quality of Life
Allergies affect everyone differently, but all who suffer from allergies have their quality of life impacted in one or more ways. Allergies have been known to affect people’s: 

• Cognitive functions
• Decision making abilities
• General productivity
• Learning abilities
• Quality of work
• Self esteem
• Stamina

The Buteyko method is a great help for reducing sensitivity to allergens. It consists of simple breathing exercises and lifestyle guidelines aimed at promoting good health. Nasal breathing is the first step.

A new study shows asthmatic children living in multi-family housing units tend to have a harder time keeping their asthma symptoms under control. 

Researchers from the Yale Center for Perinatal, Pediatric and Environmental Epidemiology in New Haven, Conn., say this is due to the high prevalence of gas stoves in multi-family housing units. The stoves let off an excess amount of nitrogen dioxide, one of asthma’s worst triggers. 

According to study findings published in the February 2006 issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, children who are exposed to higher levels of indoor nitrogen dioxide are more likely to experience asthma-related problems like wheezing, persistent coughing, shortness of breath and chest tightness. 

This poses a serious problem for children with already sensitive airways, says Dianna Phares, a registered nurse practitioner and childhood asthma expert at Maryville University in St. Louis, Mo. “It’s a trigger, definitely,” she said. 

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports that nitrogen dioxide exposure in asthmatic people often creates increased bronchial reactivity. Nitrogen dioxide can also “make young children more susceptible to respiratory infections,” according to an EPA fact sheet on indoor environmental asthma triggers. 

More than half of U.S. households use gas-fueled heating and cooking devices, according to the Yale study. In the study, researchers found 45.9 percent of multi-family housing units surveyed had nitrogen dioxide concentrations at dangerous levels. That number fell to just 9.3 percent in single-family homes surveyed. 

Nitrogen dioxide becomes a common asthma trigger because “it irritates the eyes and nose and throat, and can cause shortness of breath in people with asthma,” Phares said. 

But there are steps parents can take to keep children and other family members with sensitive airways healthy, she added. “If you can avoid using the fireplace, that’s a priority. Use an exhaust fan over the stove, too, and try to get the ventilation out.” 

Other precautions include keeping chimneys cleaned and making sure not to run cars in the garage. 

Nitrogen dioxide is not the only trigger of asthma that parents should be aware of, Phares said. Hairspray, perfumes, cleaning products, aspirin, beta-blockers, exercise, cigarette smoke, pets and even the feces of cockroaches can also irritate the sensitive airways of an asthmatic. 

When an asthmatic encounters one of these triggers, “sensitive airways start to squeeze and swell, and that’s where the problem starts,” Phares said. 

To avoid asthmatic episodes, parents should watch for these triggers and try to pinpoint what precipitates a child’s asthmatic episode. Specific allergens can also be determined by a skin test done at the doctor’s office. 

Don’t expect your kids to grow out of their breathing difficulties, Phares said. While drugs and inhalers may keep the symptoms at bay, the sensitive airways that cause asthma will probably stay with a person for a lifetime. 

Keep track of how many times asthmatic children need to use an albuterol or corticosteroid “rescue inhaler.” Using the inhaler more than two times a day is too much, Phares said, and should signal another trip to the doctor to be re-evaluated for the necessity of maintenance medications. 

“No one should die from asthma,” Phares said. “It’s a very controllable disease.”

Overheated homes can cause a person to hyperventilate thus causing asthma. This is just one of the many topics covered in the Buteyko clinic to help control your asthma naturally.

Here’s one more argument for avoiding antibiotics in young children unless they’re truly needed.

   A new study has found that infants younger than 12 months who have had antibiotics may be more likely to develop asthma when they get older. 

   Researchers at the University of British Columbia looked at seven studies that compared kids who hadn’t had antibiotics before age 1 to those who had. In some of those studies, kids who had been given antibiotics were nearly three times more likely to develop asthma than those who hadn’t. 

   In other studies, the odds were about the same for each group.
   The analysis was published in the March issue of CHEST, the professional journal of the American College of Chest Physicians. 

   Parents shouldn’t panic if their kids have been treated with antibiotics as babies, said Holly Molberg, a pediatrician at Southwest Children’s Clinic in West Jordan. 

   ”I wouldn’t be too alarmed,” she said. “They found an association. We don’t know if it’s cause and effect.”
   Researchers acknowledged that they don’t know exactly what the relationship is, only that treatment with at least one antibiotic as an infant appears to be associated with the development of childhood asthma.
   The association may point to some common factor among kids who had the antibiotics, said Dave Folland, a pediatrician at Mountain View Pediatrics in Sandy. 

   ”It may be that children who eventually get asthma tend to get more bacterial infections and therefore are more likely to get antibiotics,” he said.
   The most important thing for parents to remember is that antibiotics are effective only against bacterial infections - such as a urinary tract infection or strep throat - and not the common cold.
   ”With a true or serious bacterial infection, especially in the first year of life,
antibiotics can be lifesaving and can save a child a lot of pain and complications,” he said. “Out of desire to have their child well, some parents hope for something to make them better, including antibiotics.”

A study published by Harvard Medical School researchers last week may bring doctors one step closer to finding a cure for asthma.

“As an asthmatic, it’s frustrating to always be trying to treat the symptoms of the disease,” says Talya J. Brettler ’08. “I’m excited about the prospect of a cure.”
 

Although studies are conducted constantly, the main contributor missing is hyperventilation. Asthma will not be cured until hyperventilation is addressed and the Buteyko method is the only treatment, conventional or otherwise, that targets the issue.

Asthma and Neighborhood

Educational level, housing status and other socioeconomic factors are thought to affect the health of people with asthma, but a new study finds that one’s neighborhood and surrounding area may also play a significant role, even after taking into account personal economic well-being.
While study findings showed worse health and poorer quality of life among people living in lower-income areas, they also showed poorer lung function among those living in suburbs, where people tended to own newer homes in less densely populated neighborhoods.
The study, conducted by researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, is published in the January issue of the European Respiratory Journal.
The analysis did not pinpoint exposures that might be linked to these population effects, but most researchers believe water-damaged housing stock, proximity to high traffic flow, industrial pollution, and social environmental stress are key contributors to health problems in poorer neighborhoods. The study raises the possibility that more frequent household pet ownership may be one factor in lower lung function in suburban-related health exposures, although larger backyards with more allergenic plants could be a contributor.
“Our research could be subtitled ‘No Man is an Island,’” said Paul Blanc, MD, UCSF professor of occupational and environmental medicine and lead author of the study. “The study findings underscore that asthma is a complex problem that does not simply affect people in isolation.”
“Even if individual risk factors such as poor access to medical care can be overcome, different communities have different asthma patterns, and strategies for prevention and treatment must take this into account,” he said.
Blanc cites the need for studies to nail down the community-wide physical and social environmental factors that contribute to asthma and poorer respiratory health.
The study examined the respiratory health and self-reported socioeconomic status of more than 400 adults suffering from either asthma, chronic nasal or sinus conditions, or both. Most of the people live in northern California. Participants had previously been interviewed at least once as part of the researchers’ on-going study. Some were also visited in their homes in order to directly assess their health status and environment.
The investigators were able to use computer mapping of residential location, a process known as geocoding, in order to link interview data with general U.S. census information for each person’s surroundings. In this way they could characterize different area-wide socioeconomic factors such as percentage of home ownership, population density, average incomes, number of single-parent households, and local unemployment rates. By combining these factors, the investigators saw a strong link between the socioeconomic status of the area and health measures in asthma.
“This has been seen with other diseases besides asthma, although not usually as an effect over and above personal economic status,” Blanc says. “Where we live doesn’t predict our fate, but it surely links to our health. We should identify the key environmental agents and work to decrease how much people are exposed to them in their daily lives.”
 

Asthma is a disease of civilisation. Hot houses, overeating, processed foods, increased stress level and lack of exercise all cause hyperventilation. So, if you live in a wealthy economy, the incidence of asthma increases.

New research is adding to the list of potential health consequences of stress. A study of 60 children conducted by researchers at University College in London found stress quadruples the risk of asthma attacks and amplifies their symptoms when they strike. Events like moving, changes in family relationships and deaths circumstances noted in the study. Researchers say the increased risk appeared to last as long as six weeks. 

They note that more study is needed to explore exactly how stress may impact asthma. The study is published in the journal “Thorax.”  Stress causes hyperventilation in people and will lead to heightened symptoms and asthma attacks. The Buteyko method aims to reverse this.