elle sagenev

Dr. Suess comes to mind here. The Lorax, in particular.

Loads of people have come and seen my "crazy". Few appreciate it. That's ok. My self worth isn't' based on their opinion.



I do tell people I'm just a hippy. In Wyoming that's all you really have to say. When I say it I'm usually wearing conservative clothes. I think I mostly just baffle.

No real good responses for you. Just be a duck.

Eric Hanson wrote:Elle,

I have suffered extreme fall allergies most of my life so I can sympathize with your husband’s suffering.  Two pharmacological developments in the late ‘90s radically changed my life for the fall allergy season.  The first was non- sedating antihistamines.  The second was nasal corticosteroids.

In my experience, the most effective of the non sedating antihistamines is Zyrtec (now a generic).  It will complete stop my allergy symptoms in their tracks.  The nasal corticosteroids take a couple days to work but once they do, the allergy symptoms just don’t come at all.

I am not certain if you are looking for pharmaceutical options, but these have been absolute Godsends for me.  I used to be a sneezing wreck for the first 6 weeks of each school year.  Since I discovered this one-two knockout punch, I effectively have not had allergies since 1998.  Again, I have no idea your thoughts on medicine, but these are cheap and over-the-counter medications.

I hope this is helpful and I hope your husband feels better.  I know how miserable allergies can make your life.

Eric

He does take meds. So does our daughter, who has taken right after her daddy. Poor thing.

Ben Zumeta wrote:I also noticed some of your posts about what is going on with oil and or fracking pollution around your property. While you may have far less than industrialized city, water and air  pollution can aggravate allergies to plants and other natural sources.

Yes so this is actually a huge concern of ours as there are 2 drilling pads staked out in the field in front of our house. They haven't started drilling yet but it is not something we are looking forward to. Moving is certainly on the table. The issue there being that to keep our kids in the same school district (which we love) there is essentially no drilling safe area to live. It's everywhere.

Michael Cox wrote:As an allergy sufferer, I sympathize with you both.  As others have said though, the problem is not the plants per se, but that your husband seems to be hypersensitive to the allergens. Moving to another area may help in the short term, but it is just as likely that he will develop allergies to the new local plants he is exposed to.

The questions I would want to get answers to are:

1) How severe are his attacks? Are we talking full blown anaphylaxis? Bad hayfever? Continual low grade sniffles?
2) Can the symptoms be managed by medication?
3) Do activities like showering, changing sheets alleviate his symptoms?

I have been seriously looking at investing in a robotic vacuum cleaner, as we have a dog that sheds terribly. Many of the reviews of these say that they do a very good job of alleviating pet allergies, as they drastically reduce pet hair and dust. With the best will in the world, no matter how dedicated you are to cleaning and hoovering you will not be able to maintain the routine of multiple hours per day of vacuuming that a robot can do.

You might also talk to an allergy specialist and see if there is desensitisation treatment available. I had two severe reactions to bee stings after many years of beekeeping. A course of treatment has totally removed that sensitivity and I am back keeping bees again. As a quality of life/confidence issue it is worth looking into.

Best of luck.

We do have a Roomba but it absolutely cannot handle our pet hair. It is even the dog designated one. It just clogs up so fast that I spend the entire time brushing the pet hair out of the roomba.


He is medicated. My husband is an unlucky guy in that he also has asthma. So breathing in general is just hard for him. We've noticed when we drive west of town he is sneezing and coughing like crazy. We live east of town where it is moderately better. But yeah, listening to him try to breathe kind of freaks me out. We live at pretty high altitude and his Dr has suggested that a move to a lower altitude would probably help. All our family is here though. We struggle with leaving them since our kids LOVE them, and so do we.

So we have all hardwood floors except in our bedroom. He puts stuff on the floor about once a week and vacuums it up. Seems to help a bit.

S Bengi wrote:

elle sagenev wrote:

Man, it just says "trees" lol.

He is sensitive to walnuts but almonds aren't a problem. He's an odd man.

Well hopefully he is okay with at least the rose family (stone fruit +apple/pear +raspberry).

I wonder what additional test is available to zero in on what specific tree/pollen/fruit he is not allergic to or at least lightly allergic to. At least you would be able to grow those ones. Even if you had to remove the offenders

He eats a lot of fruits. Course he's allergic to so much narrowing it down could be hard!

Trace Oswald wrote:Maybe consider making your Zone 1 as large as possible with things he isn't allergic too, even if it means rock gardens or what-have-you.  If you can keep your permie plants farther away, you may be able to find a solution you can both live with.  Moving may not even help.  People with widespread allergies like his are probably going to have issues with car exhaust, air pollution, and other things that you would have even in you moved to an apartment in the city.

Also consider an elimination diet.  It may be that he has food allergies that are pushing him near his allergen threshold and the plants are pushing him over.  If he can minimize other triggers, it may lower his overall allergen load to the point the plants are less hazardous.

One problem is that he is also allergic to dogs. We have 3. Big hairy ones. We are dog people so not even he is willing to get rid of them.

The thing that showed up as THE BIGGEST allergen for him was weeds. One of them in particular, lambs quarter, is the biggest pain in the butt for me. It's everywhere. It annoys even me. I didn't plant it, it's just a weed. lol


I agree though, I can make a bigger space around the house for him. I knew he was sensitive before so I never have him mow anyway.

Chris Kott wrote:It's the pollen of all these that he's allergic to, I'll bet. I have a similar thing with the birch family, which means not only am I miserable when the birch are in bloom, but I also can't eat anything related to them, so no apricots, peaches, cherries, plums, any stone fruit, really, and for some reason, no apple or pear either.

Has he been trying raw local honey? It has helped me somewhat, although the specific environment that it primes you to needs to be close to your home for it to be at all effective, from what I hear.

I suggest upgrading the screens on your home to one fine enough to exclude pollen. He's probably already been told that a shower before bed to rinse collected airborne allergens off is a great idea. I know that if my better half, with whom I sleep, has a quick shower and rinses the dust from her hair, I sleep much better.

My non-species-specific reactions have more to do with particulate size and density than they do with any specific type, but then I am also allergic to dust and mould, and cat and dog hairs, and some, well most, rabbit hair, and probably hay, too. I find that getting rid of soft, pollen and dust-trapping surfaces like carpets, rugs, and drapery cuts down on a lot of the airborne nasties. All it takes is a beam of sunlight to show me how I'm doing.

Lastly, I have one of those ionic air filters, you know, the ones that trap dust and small particles on the surface of charged plates. You could also use a humidifier/dehumidifier/console fan with a filter, and make sure that filter is rated for pollen.

Permaculture isn't killing your spouse. If it weren't pollen, it would be something else, and particulate management is your best bet, in my opinion.

-CK

He has been talking about getting a whole home air purifier. I think it's probably the best idea. Though we still have the issue of living on 40 acres where I have purposefully planted a lot of the things he's allergic too. Bah!


We are raising bees. This year will be the first we can collect honey. It will definitely be incorporated into our daily diet!!

S Bengi wrote:If he is allergic to apple tree. It is possible that he cant eat apples or anything in the apple sub-family.
The same goes for the peanut/soy family and for spinach or cabbage family.

You might have to move to southern florida or hawaii where they have a different set of trees and fruits and weeds.
You might have to move to somewhere that is even more desolate and just import all of your food.

If possible can you list which fruit/fruit tree he is able to be around, and which nuts and which vegetables and which grains. Grains are also grasses.

Maybe he will have to move during the bloom season and then come back after all that fruit tree pollen has finished shedding.

Man, it just says "trees" lol.

He is sensitive to walnuts but almonds aren't a problem. He's an odd man.

My wonderful husband has been having worse and worse allergy attacks so he went in for a more comprehensive allergy panel. The results, he's allergic to trees, grass and weeds. I told him weeds was rather unspecific and he sent me a list of the weeds included in the test. He laughingly told me he recognized a lot of the names because they are plants I talk about and use on our permaculture property.

So here I sit wondering what to do about this whole mess.

Brad Horner wrote:

elle sagenev wrote:If you are anywhere as high, dry, and clay-ey as me it'll take FOREVS to break down. I have a few hugels I built years back with dead trees from my property and those dead trees are still in there, not looking much different at all.

13" of annual rain and reddish brown powder that when wet is like glue. I will infiltrate water from street to soak into the berm. I'm skeptical but I probably will try. I'm mixing in compost to the pallets and maybe saw dust or leaves. But it would take too long without some way to accelerate the rotting.

I get 11" with heavy clay. My hugels are right next to swales and one of them gets watered from our driveway. Still natta. Worth a try though!!! I have some underground ones I garden on and those do great btw. At least going by the level of produce I get from them.