Allergens Add Up in Your Body Until You Reach Your Symptom Threshold

Although it is possible to be allergic to just one substance (for example, cat dander or ragweed) and react whenever you’re near that animal or plant, most patients are sensitive to more than one thing. For these patients, symptoms can appear when they are exposed to one or more allergy triggers at once. In these cases the effects add up. Keep in mind, if you have asthma, other things can also contribute to your symptom threshold and trigger an asthma attack, including a cold, a respiratory infection, or irritants (such as smoke or pollution).

So how does this cumulative effect play out in real life? Here’s an example of what we mean:

1. Your child plays in the park during the morning. Allergen exposure: pollen
2. Then plays with a friend’s dog in the afternoon.  Allergen exposure: dog dander
3. And finally, crawls snuggly into bed at night. Allergen exposure: house dust mite
4. Symptoms occur when the patient symptom threshold is exceeded.

By reducing exposure to one or more allergens, you can protect yourself and your child  in many ways. Most importantly, it can reduce your symptoms and enhance the effectiveness of your allergy medication. But it can also mean you don’t need to eliminate something you or your child enjoys. Using the scenario above, if your child stayed inside during high pollen count days and you kept his room free of allergens, he might be able to play with his friend’s dog once in a while without suffering an allergy attack.

Learn more about ways to reduce your exposure to allergens.