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Cat Dander and Your Allergies - The Basics |
 It seems odd to people who develop an allergy to cats that such an allergy exists. After all, cats are a species of animal that are well known for being clean. You only have to live with a cat for a day or so to witness that cats are constantly bathing themselves. They are generally fussy about only using their cat boxes and they always look very tidy. That is why it is good to understand the real source of most allergic reactions to cats.
The culprit in most cat allergies is not a cat that lives a dirty lifestyle. The culprit is cat dander, which is a something very natural and not dangerous in most cases. It is important to remember that if you are allergic to cat dander, it isn't the cat's fault. All cats generate cat dander, even the cleanest cat you know.
If we must blame anything for an allergy problem, we can blame our own immune systems. The allergic reactions to cat dander you may experience come from a mistaken diagnosis by the immune system that the cat dander is dangerous to your body. The immune system then generates chemicals to combat the dander and it is those chemicals that causes all of your unpleasant allergy symptoms.
In fact, all animals generate dander. Dander is nothing more than dead skin that resides in the fur of your loving housecat. People generate dander, dogs do it as do all mammals. It is a necessary part of how skin grows and stays healthy. And in most cases, cat dander goes unnoticed because it is cleaned from the cat's fir by the cat. But it doesn’t take much cat dander to set off an allergic reaction.
You don’t even have to be in direct contact with a cat to experience the unpleasant allergic reactions that cat dander can cause. Cat dander is very tiny and there is usually a lot of it so any home that has a domestic can has the dander residing in the carpets and on the furniture of the home. Even in the cleanest of homes, that dander makes its way into the room and settles back in. The "dust" that you see accumulating around the home is often dander or dead skin cells that come off all of the living things in the home.
For someone with a very sensitive allergy to cat dander, you could experience symptoms by just being in a room where a cat was recently. The cat dander stays in the air until the ventilation system sweeps it away. And if your housecat is indoors a lot, there is always a plentiful supply of cat dander to replace that which is removed from the house through routine cleaning.
Many people look to hairless cats to reduce the possibility of an allergic reaction to cat dander. This is only a moderately successful approach to managing your cat allergy because it is the cat dander the animal produces that sets off your allergic symptoms, not the hair. But a short hair or hairless cat has less potential for trapping that cat dander in her fir. Instead, the cat's dander may be into the environment of the home more quickly. So having a hairless cat can only be effective if you also have elevated rituals of cleaning to remove the cat dander from the home as quickly as possible.
In most cases, a mild allergy to cat dander can be controlled by simply not being in the same room as a cat. You can even own a cat as a children's pet and control your own allergy to cat dander by restricting the rooms where the cat can go and by keeping the air of the home well ventilated and the cleanliness of the house in good order. So get a good feel for how extreme your own allergic reactions to cat dander are before you overreact to cats in your home or in the homes of friends. Cat dander allergies are controllable and the odds are that you will be able to find ways to live at peace with these lovable furry creatures.
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