Please help. Breathing :(

My wife has been down this holiday season and I knew only one thing would cheer her up. So I went cat searching at multiple shelters around my valley and found our new friend. He's been with us for two nights now and I can not breathe. He is a trigger for my mild asthma and its rough. The first night he slept on the foot of the bed and I felt a little wheezy. So that morning I kicked all the preventive stuff into gear and washed all of our bedding and turned our bedroom into a cat free safe room. I went to my local pharmacist and grabbed some zyrtec and now will be taking it daily. I will also soon seek out allergen shots etc from my physician. Day two was a little rough, we gave him a hypoallergenic shampoo bath with success [emoji]128515[/emoji] and set cat rules of keeping laundry sorted and clean etc. I'm just looking for hope that I can slowly become immune or take other supplements to help out. I'm in this battle to the end and willing to do whatever it takes.... But I need hope, and or maybe some positive feedback that it will get better any advice or success stories will really help!

One thing that helps a lot is having a really good vacuum cleaner. One that doesn't throw dust back into the air. Dyson vacuum cleaners are excellent. If that is out of the budget, then the Shark is also good.  You want a bagless system with a filter.

Also, when dusting, use a damp cloth.  A dry cloth or those Swiffer Dusters tend to throw dust into the air.

Most people aren't allergic to the actual cat, it's the dander (dead skin) from the cat that people react to.

Yup have a Hoover pet vac with hepa and washable filter. I'm just reading things on asthma sites that are scaring me into thinking this isn't something I can overcome.

Are you on any inhaled asthma meds (bronchodilators and/or corticosteriods) like Symbicort, Advair, or Ventolin? If not, as an asthmatic myself with 5 cats, I highly recommend that you ask your doctor for a prescription, especially for one of the "preventives" (i.e. contains a corticosteroid). These will help hugely!! I take one puff twice a day and no longer have any symptoms (unless I forget). 

Good luck! Asthma sucks for sure, but it can also be quite manageable if you have all the tools.

Sure am, Ventolin. Only need it really after/during exercise on a normal day. Seems like my only triggers for needing it are cats and dust otherwise. We have a all tile home so preventive maint should be easy. I was issued a daily preventive inhaler as well a while back but never used it, just started back on that as well

Some people have found that they get less allergic to a new cat after a couple of weeks. It may be their immune system getting used to the cat, or allergens from the cat's previous life (dry skin from low-quality food, contaminants from the shelter, etc.) wearing off. A good-quality food can help too. Some people swear by wiping the cat with distilled water every day, it sounds odd but I guess it's worth a try since it's cheap and easy.

It look sigular and my inhaler to help me it gets better with time. None of te allegy medications helped. If you can afford adviar that's the real trick. Though its very crowded we've got 3 cats sharing the bed and I'm mostly symptom free. I'm not sure if it's cold where you are but that will compound things as well.

We have a built-in "industrial-size" HEPA air filter, currently set to run every 4 hours for 20 minutes, leather furniture and hard floors (parquet, laminate and tile). Those used to be the only things that prevented me from having asthma attacks with just one cat.

For the past couple months I've been working at our local shelter, where I'm in very close contact with over 70 cats four or five days a week. At first I was using my inhaler multiple times a day, then gradually less.

At the beginning of this week I realized that I hadn't used my inhaler for about 2 1/2 weeks, so I hope and believe I've been desensitized. I still carry it and may need to use it regularly when seasonal allergy season starts, but cats have obviously become less of a trigger.

Please be careful though. My older brother died of a cat-allergy-induced asthma attack, so it's nothing to take lightly.

There's Allerpet C which is supposed to reduce cat dander too.

Yes, be careful. I read once that adults who are reintroduced to cats have more allergy problems than if they'd never not had them.

I hope you have some epi pens and pray for a happy ending here.