When we bought our historic home (over 50 years old) we knew that there was a lot of dust in the heater vents.
We decided to have the vents cleaned out before we installed central air. Asthma Doc has always told us not to use a swamp cooler when you have asthma (it increases the humidity level in the home and often blows contaminants through the wet pads on the swamp coolers.) So the first thing we did when we bought the house was call the contractor for a central air unit.
However, we didn't want to install central air and blow 50 years worth of dust and gunk all over the house, so we had the had the vents cleaned out. I'm sure there were some things coming out while the previous owners were using the furnace, but we wanted a fresh start. (And the previous owners didn't have asthma or allergies!)
Most of the carpet cleaning companies offer vent cleaning now, just shop around a little. The company we used charged us per vent, so your cost will depend on the size of your house.
It seems to have made a difference, I don't have to dust that often. Asthma is really strange, it's the only disease I know of that is affected so much by the environment around us. So, anything I can do to make it a little safer for breathing-I'm all for it!
Mother's Day asthma attack
Well, I didn't see that one coming. We were having a great garden party on Mother's Day, we had worked all day Saturday getting the yard cleaned up and it looked beautiful. (This isn't a photo of my yard, but it looks similar. Apparently my camera doesn't like having sand in the lens from our trip to the coast to see family-so no photos yesterday )
The longer I sat outside on the patio, the more I sneezed and wheezed. I didn't want to get up and leave our guests, so I just visited with them. How bad can allergies get, right?!
Well, I finally did give up and went in the house, but by then it was too late. We still had guests at our home, so I couldn't hop in the shower. (Which is what I normally would have done). So, I changed my clothes, washed my face with soap and water and ran a wet was cloth over my hair to try to capture some of the pollen.
But it was too little, too late. I started the lovely 'asthma cough' and ended up staggering over to my purse for my inhaler. Happy Mother's Day! Gotta love my inhaler though, it's worth EVERY penny.
I still felt lousy after that, so I ended up taking a nap (isn't that what we moms are allowed to do on Mother's Day?)
Today, I have a sporadic cough and my lungs feel terrible, they are still trying to recover from yesterday. And my allergy medicine is making me feel like I am on slow speed.
Isn't life with allergies and asthma fun? Always unpredictible, always at the worst time.
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