Both LJ and I suffer from seasonal allergies – and when I say suffer, I mean suffer. Without some sort of allergy medicine, both of us are constantly blowing our noses and sneezing all over everything.
If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that I prefer to keep the medicine-taking to a minimum. This means employing every other allergen reducing technique I can come up with and only resorting to the meds when it gets really bad.
So what have I found that helps LJ and I reduce our allergy symptoms?
1) Dust often. I hate dusting – hate,hate,hate it. So as a practical joke (I’m guessing) God led me to buy a house that produces the most dust I have ever seen. Seriously. I have no idea where it comes from. I spend a lot of time dusting and now trick bribe convince LJ to help me. To cut down on cost and help save the earth, we use microfiber cloths. They do a better job than Swiffers anyway.
2) Keep the windows closed during high pollen count times. As much as I love the fresh air smell, I’m unable to enjoy it if my nose is all clogged up.
3) Shower before bed. Nothing like letting your hair fill up with pollen, transferring it to your pillow, and then burying your nose it in all night. It took a while for me to figure out that this was why I was waking up completely congested every morning.
4) Wash out your nose. I know – gross, huh? I can’t claim to enjoy using a Neti Pot
5) Change your furnace filter often. Change your filter every three months, and use a high performance filter, such as a Filtrete Elite Allergen Reduction Filter from 3M. (During the height of allergy season, I actually change mine monthly.) This has made the biggst difference in my symptoms. If you are like me, and tend to forget about changing your filter, you might want to sign up for Filtrete’s Clear Advantages program, which offers healthy home living tips, money saving offers, and (most importantly) filter change reminders.
Got any allergy-reducing tips you’d like to share? I’d love to hear them! Please feel free to leave a comment with any tips I might have missed.
Here’s to a summer full of low pollen count days!
I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of Filtrete and received a gift certificate to thank me for taking the time to participate
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