Environmental Allergies and Relocating: How to Make Your New Home Easier to Breathe In

Recently I’ve had a few patients who expressed concern about moving.  Moving can be anxiety-provoking for those who have environmental or multiple chemical sensitivities, because landlords (bless their hearts!) try to make apartments and homes look fresh and updated for their new residents, but (damn their eyes!) they use the cheapest, smelliest paints, flooring, and carpets known to mankind!  

The last time I moved, my landlord very generously put in a new (faux) wood floor, painted the whole place, and put in new fixtures in the kitchen and bathroom.  Yay!  Right?  No!  BOO!  A couple of weeks after I moved, the floor started off-gassing the most atrocious chemicals, and I was sick for weeks.  

So what’s a sensitive person to do??  

Well, the good news is that there are some relatively easy solutions.  Regardless of what could be off-gassing in your new place—flooring, carpeting, whatever—you can quickly and inexpensively do a couple of things that can help a lot.

Let’s start with paint.  Regular paint is super-smelly, and tends to off-gas for much longer than people realize.  Furthermore, the stuff it off-gasses, called VOC (which stands for volatile organic compounds) is unbelievably toxic—not as toxic as having a running automobile in your living room, granted, but not that far behind.  Luckily, there is a type of paint you can buy called Low VOC.  Low VOC paint (available in stores like Sherwin Williams and Benjamin Moore) will not only release far fewer toxins in the air, but it will also help absorb odors from other sources in your home.  So if you had new carpet, painting the walls would actually absorb some of the toxic off-gassing from the carpet too.  Low VOC paint is a little more expensive than regular paint, but not that much more.  And if you’re on a really tight budget, one alternative would be to just paint one wall instead of all four.

If you would like more information on Low VOC paint, here’s a link that I found to be very informative:

http://home.howstuffworks.com/home-improvement/construction/materials/low-voc-paint.htm

The other thing that will help tremendously is an air purifier.  Especially when you can’t open the windows (because it’s too cold or hot outside), having a good air purifier can make breathing a lot easier.  The one thing I found was to beware of air purifiers that said they released ozone (like that was a good thing—because it’s not!)—ozone is one of the things released by paint that you’re trying to remove, and it’s why you are getting the air purifier in the first place.

Here’s a link to an informative web page about air purifiers:

http://www.achooallergy.com/air-purifier-buying-guide.asp

Urticaria: Causes and Treatment

Urticaria, also known as hives, are one of the most stubborn allergic reactions to treat in Western Medicine. Although many cases of urticaria are caused by allergies or sensitivities, there are some cases in which the cause is not known. Called idiopathic urticaria, these cases are difficult to control and treat and are usually managed through steroids and other pharmaceuticals.

Although Western sciences debate whether all forms of urticaria are allergy-related, for the intents and purposes of BodyTalk, inflammation and redness appearing in various parts of the body are usually treated as allergies through the Body Chemistry technique. There are many cases of urticaria, the most common being environmental factors, such as cold, heat, dampness, and humidity. Once the specific sensitivities are identified, the individual is balanced to each sensitivity. This may take several treatments because each balancing runs like a formula or a computer program through the meridian system. The individual’s body-mind complex must incorporate the changes and then is ready to move onto the next balancing.

The most exciting results in working with urticaria have been seen with chronic idiopathic urticaria, in which individuals are treated for specific environmental factors, as mentioned above, depending on their sensitivity. Once treated completely, individuals usually report a complete cessation of hives and a subsequent recovery without the continued use of pharmaceuticals. This is significant because of the difficulty of avoidance with regard to environmental factors. Success in few treatments with chronic cases makes BodyTalk an important modality worth attention.

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