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Nasal Symptoms in Air Conditioning

Dr. Kagen,

I was diagnosed to be severe allergic to dust, dust mite and roaches. I heard a lot that air condition can help you reduce into allergy. Whenever I turn on the air condition in my house or in my car, I feel much worse.

What is the possible cause? Does mold or something else grow in air condition system? When I was working in a company in Southern California, I developed my severe allergy. Later on, I found out that they had not cleaned the air conditioning system for more than fifteen years.

Thanks,

Jay X.

Thanks for asking, Jay, about air conditioning and allergy symptoms.

Some patients do experience a worsening of their allergy like symptoms when inhaling cool or cold air into the nose. This does not mean that mold spores are in the air conditioned air, but rather that the dry and cooler air causes the nose to "sweat" and make more mucus. You may have a condition of hypersensitivity which means that any change either outside or inside your body is a BIG change.

Sensitive people have extremely good abilities to smell things others can not, have cold feet at night (socks to bed), are sensitive to alcoholic beverages (easy drunks), get headaches and sneeze in the sunlight, have dry skin and make a lot of mucus in the nose, sinuses, lungs and internal surfaces of the body.

Sensitive patients do not like the effects of coffee and have a sensitive state that gives them side effects from medications even at lower doses.

What do hypersensitive patients do for relief? They drink small amounts of tea (Lipton bags), use sunglasses al the time and use small doses of medicines when they are necessary.

I hope this information is useful to you. Be sure to check out the other Answers in "Any Questions" at allernet.com

Good luck.

Steve Kagen, M.D.
Allernet.com