Is your Home making you sick?
What if you were faced with the following choices? You feel miserable, so you go to your doctor to find out what’s wrong with you. The doctor gives you these two options:
- You can undergo a series of tests that will cost a whole lot of money and will probably NOT tell you what’s making you feel badly.
- You can take several steps that will cost MUCH less and will probably make you feel better.
If you chose option #2, read on.
We know household contaminants can make people feel really terrible. A lot of people in this country have experienced that. In fact, tens of millions of doctor visits in the U.S. are because of allergy-type symptoms. The amount of money spent on allergy and asthma treatments in this country (in 2002 dollars) was over $7,000,000,000 (7 billion!). The asthma rate is sky-rocketing. People understand that their houses can make them sick.
What we don’t know is why-or how. Responsible scientists and epidemiologists (the folks who study patterns of illness) admit they don’t know why particular contaminants make some people feel awful. The specialists who have studied this phenomenon all their lives know it occurs, but they still can’t explain why some people react to one contaminant and others don’t. Or why that same person reacts to the contaminant at one time and not at another. Or why once people have reacted badly to one contaminant, they may begin to react badly to others that are similar (sensitization).
They agree that there is no simple answer and often the causes may be so complex, we may never know why we’re "allergic" to things. So, what are we sufferers supposed to do while they’re studying this stuff?
Some people have answered this question by getting a lot of tests. Apparently they figure if they identify a contaminant in their homes, they can go to the doctor and have tests to tell them if that’s the problem.
That would be great! But it usually doesn’t work that way. First, contaminants are EVERYWHERE. Molds, bacteria, yeasts, pollen, animal dander, chemicals, you name it, they’re EVERYWHERE.
Let’s say you hire somebody to come in and test for mold in your home. What do you think? Will they find it? Of course-it’s everywhere. Is that what’s causing your "allergies"? Who knows?
When doctors administer allergy tests in their offices, they use "stressors" (contaminants). Those stressors frequently aren’t of a known type, origin, or strength and frequently don’t cause the same symptoms in people as they do when they’re found or grow in our own homes. Or they don’t cause the symptoms unless they’re in the combination of what we’re exposed to in our homes-or workplaces or schools.
Is the answer more testing? I’d suggest not. And they cost much less than testing. I’d suggest that the most cost-effective way to make us feel better is to invest in the step-by-step evaluation and implementation of all-around good indoor air quality. It’s much cheaper and probably what will be recommended even if you could find out what’s making you sick. I’d suggest that the least expensive, most likely solutions to our indoor air quality problems, such as those offered by HomeAire, are already out there and available to us right now.
Trudy Y. Smith
Senior Training Specialist
Spruce Environmental Technologies and HomeAire
