Living Allergy Free: How to Create and Maintain an Allergen- and Irritant-Free Environment

295 Pages·1992·14.57 MB·English

by  M. Eric Gershwin MD

Living Allergy Free
Living
Allergy
Free
How to Create and Maintain
an Allergen- and Irritant-Free
Environment
by
M. Eric Gershwin,
MD
and
Edwin L. Klingelhofer,
PhD
Springer Science+Business LLC
Medi~
© 1992 The Springer Science+Business Media New York
Originally published by The Humana Press Inc. in 1992
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1992
All rights of any nature whatsoever reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or other
wise without written permission from the Publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Gershwin, M. Eric, 1946-
Living Allergy Free: how to create and maintain an allergen
and irritant-free environment/ by M. Eric Gershwin and Edwin L.
Klingelhofer.
294 + xiv pp., 15.24 x 22.86 cm
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-4612-6744-7 ISBN 978-1-4612-0399-5 (eBook)
DOl 10.1007/978-1-4612-0399-5
1. Allergy-Popular works. 2. Allergy-Prevention. 3. Allergy
Environmental sapects. I. Klingelhofer, E. L. (Ed L.) II. Title.
RC584.G453 1992
616.97'05-<1c20 91-45417
CIP
109876543
Preface
The world is full of naturally occurring and
human-made substances capable of causing trouble
some reactions in susceptible individuals. These
reactions can be roughly classified according to:
• the bodily systems they affect
• how long they last
• the ease with which they can be treated
• whether they are allergic, hypersensitive, or toxic in
origin
• how rapidly they develop following exposure to the
trigger.
This book deals with the many thousands of these
materials capable of provoking fast-appearing, rela
tively short-lived, and usually manageable allergic or
hypersensitive reactions in the respiratory, gastro
intestinal, or cutaneous (skin) systems of the human
body. It tells you:
• what forms the symptoms take
• the environments in which they tend to turn up
• what their possible causes are and how you can go
about identifying the one or ones responsible for your
condition
v
vi Living Allergy Free
• the steps you can take to avoid exposure entirely or
significantly reduce its risk
• what forms of treatment are most likely to eliminate
or control your symptoms.
The book does not cover reactions to substances
usually human-made ones--that cause severe, stub
born, debilitating damage. Here the culprits are likely
to be chemicals linked to cancer, silicosis, asbestosis,
and other forms of grave damage that are thought to
develop after prolonged exposure to some causative
agent, more often than not in the workplace. Like
wise, it only touches incidentally on the two major
causes of chronic and crippling disease in our society
-tobacco and alcohol-whose dangers, unhappily, are
as well known as they are ignored.
It also has nothing to say about "recreational"
drugs whose risks and remedies are sufficiently
familiar to anyone able to read the front page of a
daily newspaper or follow a television news program.
Nor does it dwell on vague, ill-defined, scientifically
undocumented, modish symptoms or syndromes that
are often, but unpersuasively, attributed to allergy or
hypersensitivity to food, drink, exposure to chemicals,
and the like. An example of this class of ailment is
Tension-Fatigue Syndrome, said to be the result of
allergic or hypersensitive reactions to food elements
in the diet. There is no solid evidence to bear out this
linkage.
Even with these constraints, we believe that the
allergic conditions we discuss here are nearly as ubiq
uitous as the common cold and cause as much dis
tress, adding up to as great an economic and human
vii
cost as any other group of illnesses that we might have
chosen to write about. Asthma, for instance, one of
the major allergic diseases-and certainly the most
frightening of them-is the main reason for chronic
school absences among children and contributes sig
nificantly and needlessly to poor school performance
and stunted social, physical, and intellectual devel
opment in some of its sufferers.
Hay fever triggered by pollens, molds, dust, and
other airborne particles causes acute and largely avoid
able physical discomfort, absence from work or school,
and impairs performance or severely restricts activ
ity in the millions of Americans who suffer from it.
To these allergy sufferers add the other millions
who are sensitive to certain foods or food additives
berries, eggs, legumes, shellfish, preservatives, dyes,
walnuts-or who break out in a rash when they touch
things as wildly disparate and commonplace as toilet
soap, poison ivy, nickel-plated watchbands, fabric soft
ener, or "No Carbon Required" paper. Throw in the
additional legions who develop unwanted and some
times dangerous side reactions to such common medi
cations as aspirin or antibiotics. And don't forget the
hordes who are made acutely uncomfortable by tobacco
smoke, pollutants, fumes, and even perfumes and
scents. Then there are the unlucky ones who develop
serious reactions to insect stings or bites, or even, in
some cases, are made ill by breathing in particles of
insect bodies or the compounds used to get rid of them.
Joining them are the unfortunates who react to ani
mal dander from cats, dogs, horses, and even birds.
These triggers of allergy or irritation can turn up
any place, any time.
viii Living Allergy Free
The information we have systematically compiled
in this book cannot be found in any other single source.
It can help you and your family greatly. Its sugges
tions about health care reflect the best and most up
to-date medical information and opinion available. As
with all medical advice, however, cases-and there
fore treatments-may vary.
It is not intended to be an alternative to or sub
stitute for your own doctor's recommendations. In par
ticular, the treatment of severe, protracted, or stub
born symptoms or the use of any medication should
be undertaken only after consultation with your own
physician. The authors and publisher therefore dis
claim any responsibility for consequences resulting
from following the advice or procedures set forth here.
The book strives for completeness and clarity. We
have tried to steer away from medical jargon and to
assure that our contents are as accurate and compre
hensive as we are humanly able to make them. To
render the text more readable, reports of actual indi
vidual case histories, drawn from our experience,
appear throughout.
The book is divided into six parts:
• Part 1 tells you how substances that invade your body
act to make you sick.
• Part 2 describes the various allergic or irritant reac
tions in detail and says something about their preva
lence, persistence, severity, and manageability.
• Part 3 offers detailed procedures you can follow to iden
tify the cause of your symptoms and sketches some
general strategies you can follow to avoid them.
• Part 4 deals with the various carriers of allergic or
irritant reactions-food, drink, the air you breathe,
ix
the things you touch or are touched by-and catalogs
the substances capable of producing symptoms in sus
ceptible individuals.
• Part 5-the heart of the book-tells you how to go
about creating allergen or irritant-safe environments
at home, out-of-doors, at school or on the job, in health
care settings, or while traveling. It also offers a chap
ter on the so-called Sick Building Syndrome, an inter
esting and tricky condition that seems to be an unan
ticipated outgrowth of the move to build energy effi
cient structures, complicated by the growing use of
synthetic or chemically treated materials in their con
struction and decor, and exacerbated by human sug
gestibility. The seven chapters in Part 5 are pivotal
because the first and, by all odds, the most effective
tactic in the care of allergic or hypersensitive reactions
is to avoid their cause.
• Part 6, the last section of the book, identifies sources
of help-and tells you how to go about lining up that
help-from both public or private sources, should it
be needed. The book ends with a set of appendixes
that list allergens and irritants and provides other
information that will be useful to you in developing
strategies for coping with your problem.
Like all other writers on medical subjects we are
indebted, first of all, to the researchers and practition
ers who, over the millenia, have brought us to our
present state of knowledge. Beyond them, and more
particularly, we owe thanks to the Hornet Founda
tion of California State University, Sacramento, which
generously provided funds to support the research that
went into this endeavor. We also very much appre
ciate and acknowledge the help of Dr. Paul Davis in
x Living Allergy Free
preparing the figures and of Drs. Christopher Chang,
Georges Halpern, Bruce Ryhal, and Ronald Ruhl for
their careful proofreading and critique. We especially
want to thank Nikki Rojo, whose incomparable secre
tarial and administrative skills brought the manu
script into being.
Whatever flaws, errors, or shortcomings may yet
be found here are ours alone.
M. Eric Gershwin, MD
Edwin L. Klingelhofer, PhD
Contents
PREFACE v
PART 1
How WHAT You EAT, DRINK, TOUCH,
OR BREATHE CAN MAKE You SICK
CHAPTER 1 3
Allergens and Irritants
What They Are, How They Can Make You Sick, and the
Sicknesses They Trigger
PART 2
ALLERGIC AND IRRITANT REACTIONS
CHAPTER 2 19
What Allergens Are and Why People Have Allergies
Their Prevalence, Persistence, Severity, and Manageability
CHAPTER 3 29
Irritants and Acquired Defects in Immunity
Their Effects, Prevalence, Severity, and Manageability
PART 3
LOCATING CAUSES FOR AND AVOIDING
ALLERGIC OR IRRITANT REACTIONS
CHAPTER 4 45
Strategies for Locating the Causes of Allergic
or Irritant Reactions
CHAPTER 5 65
Strategies for Avoiding Causes of Allergic
or Irritant Reactions
Xl