Are you an allergy sufferer?

photo credit: trumanlo

I am, unfortunately. I actually was diagnosed with allergies a few years ago, after suffering chronic sinus infections for almost 10 years, having sinus surgery performed, and being told by my (former) ENT doctor that I did not have any allergies. When we moved, 4 years ago, I saw a new doctor who immediately sent me to an allergist. The allergist did a blood test and the (oh so fun) skin prick tests and informed me that I am allergic to (among other things) dust, dustmites, mold, pollen, grass, and dairy. Which means that I’m hit with it year-round since these include both indoor and outdoor allergies.

Some of the things that the allergist recommended I try (along with allergy medication) were an air purifier, covering my mattress and pillows (and replacing pillows annually), keeping my bedroom vacuumed and dust-free, keeping our house at a low humidity level to keep mold from forming, staying inside as much as possible during the spring, summer and fall (and showering when coming in from outdoors), using air conditioning instead of opening windows and doors, cleaning the bathrooms and kitchen with bleach water to kill mold, and changing furnace filters and having our heating/cooling ducts cleaned regularly. Phew! While I can say that I made an effort at these things for a while, here it is several years later, and I just can’t keep up.

Staying inside just isn’t practical with young kids, and as it turns out, indoor air is four to five times more polluted than outdoor air – which is of particular concern because most of us spend as much as 90% of our time indoors, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Keeping your home’s indoor air quality high ensures that allergy and asthma sufferers in your family will be able to breathe more easily and suffer fewer symptoms. Allergies and asthma go hand in hand in many cases, and the prevalence of both is on the rise. According to the Centers for Disease Control, asthma has become the most common serious chronic disease in children and the third-ranking cause of hospitalization for kids under 15.

The air purifier that we have is situated in my bedroom, since that’s where I spend most of my time at home (while sleeping). However, that really doesn’t help when I’m busy in other parts of our house. And I worry about my kids and whether or not they will develop allergies and/or asthma – my 5-year-old is already showing signs of it, as she’s been sniffling, sneezing and snoring for the past several weeks.

One thing that we really should look into for keeping our indoor air virtually pollution-free is American Standard Heating & Air Conditioning’s AccuClean™ whole home air filtration system. AccuClean can be attached to your existing furnace or air handler, so you don’t need to renovate your home to install it. Once installed, AccuClean is said to remove allergens from the air in every room of the house, as opposed to plug-in air cleaners (like our current one) that operate in only one room.

According to the manufacturer:

AccuClean removes virtually all allergens in your home – well, up to 99.98%, and you can’t get much closer to 100% than that! Additionally, the system removes more than 99% of the common flu virus. It’s 100 times more effective than the standard one-inch filters and actually easy to clean by simply vacuuming or washing the reusable filter. It catches particles in the air, even ones tinier than .1 micron in size and is 8 times more effective than the best HEPA air purifier (like ours) – and 100 times more effective than an ionic type of air purifier.

Hannah Keeley, one of the Mom Central consulting principals and founder of www.TotalMom.com, has been working closely with American Standard Heating & Air Conditioning over the past two years and has met with moms who have experienced, firsthand, the difference AccuClean can make in families’ homes and lives. To find out more about AccuClean and see Hannah’s tips about keeping your home’s indoor air clean and healthy, click here.