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Living With Indoor Allergies

Summary & Participants

Sneezing in the sitting room? Coughing in the kitchen? Many common allergens occur primarily indoors and can make your life miserable. Join our panel of experts as they discuss ways to make your home allergy-proof.

Medically Reviewed On: May 07, 2008

Webcast Transcript

PAUL MONIZ: I'm Paul Moniz. Thank you for joining us on this webcast. Today we are discussing indoor allergens. Things like dust, mold, and even rotting insects that lurk under your bed and even on your bed sheets. Indoor allergens can indeed make your life miserable, but oftentimes sufferers attribute their symptoms to something else, never suspecting their own home may be the chief culprit.

Here to help us develop a battle plan against this indoor invasion, are two doctors who specialize in the field. Dr. Morris Nejat is the director of the Division of Pediatric Allergy and Clinical Immunology at Bellevue Hospital Center. He is also a clinical professor of pediatrics at NYU Medical Center. Dr. Nejat, thanks for joining us.

We also have Dr. Heidi Zafra, who is the head of Pediatric Allergy at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children in Philadelphia. She is also an assistant professor of pediatrics at the MCP Honneman School of Medicine. Dr. Zafra, let's begin with you. What are the most common causes of indoor allergies?

HEIDI ZAFRA, MD: Dust mites. Basically, the way I describe dust mites, they're microscopic organisms that live in your mattress and your pillows. When you shake your pillow and the dust flies, they're excrements from the dust mites, and that's what you inhale, and that's what irritates your nose and your lungs.

Also, there is indoor mold. There is pet dander. And, in cities, there is cockroach and mice. That's most of the indoor allergens.

PAUL MONIZ: Not a pretty mix, is it? What effect does that have on people?

HEIDI ZAFRA, MD: It can vary from mild symptoms such as nasal itching, chronic runny nose, chronic nasal congestion, eye itching, to more severe symptoms such as asthma, wheezing, coughing at night, shortness of breath.

PAUL MONIZ: Let's take these one by one, Dr. Nejat. Dust mites. What are they, how large are they, how much of a problem are they?

MORRIS NEJAT, MD: Dust mites are small microscopic organisms that, as Dr. Zafra mentioned, live off of, basically, shed human skin. You find them in high quantities in mattresses and boxsprings and pillows, in bedding and clothes, on carpets.

PAUL MONIZ: Those things are crawling around with you in bed, essentially?

MORRIS NEJAT, MD: Among other things, yeah. What happens is people who are genetically predisposed develop an allergy to the feces of the dust mites. What happens is, at night-time as you're sleeping, unbeknownst to you, you're breathing these fecal particles, causing allergic reaction in your nose, in your lungs, in your eyes. Causing allergy symptoms in people that are allergic to them.

PAUL MONIZ: How do you avoid dust mites?

MORRIS NEJAT, MD: Really, the big thing is, first of all, you want to make sure that you're allergic to dust mites. That would be accomplished by going to your allergist and having skin testing done, to really see are dust mites the problem?

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