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Allergy Relief

It's good to keep the body hydrated throughout the day. But drinking it isn't the only way to help ease the symptoms of allergy.

Water makes up about 70% of an adult's body weight and covers nearly 140 million square miles of the earth's surface. No life can exist without it, and that includes you.

It's a good thing there's so much of it about, since without it we would die within a matter of days. Water helps the body digest food and remove waste products, it keeps our joints and eyes well lubricated, and it helps regulate body temperature. But on an average day we lose around two litres of water when we breathe, in waste products and through sweat, and this needs to be replaced. Replacing it helps to control allergy symptoms too. For example, water keeps the skin supple making it less likely to become dry, cracked, and itchy as it does in those with eczema. Making the environment a little misty helps keep the mucous membranes and tiny hair cells that line the nose in good condition, so they can function properly too.

Air-conditioning and central heating can create a very dry environment. Consequently everything becomes dry. Have you noticed how dry your skin is and how dry your mouth feels when you're in this kind of environment? Many people with allergies find that a little humidification can help. Now, of course, too much humidity contributes to house dust mite proliferation, which won't help those allergic to its dung. Finding the right balance is what's important, so it's a case of sniff it and see.

Many of you will have been in a sauna or steam room. And I'm sure there are lots of tales about the mists clearing to reveal more than you bargained for, but forget that for now. Remember how it felt when you took a deep breath in, having naively added cold water to the coals thinking that it would cool things down? Yes, it may have burned a little in your nostrils, but your nose felt clearer, too, didn't it? Even if you haven't been in a sauna, you'll have been in a hot shower surrounded by steam, and I expect your breathing would have felt much better then, too.Unless you've won the lottery or have a serious prune-skin fetish, you really can't expect to go in and out of a sauna all day, every day. So, to combat the effects of dry modern-day environments, humidifiers have been developed for home use and are increasingly available to relieve the unpleasant discomfort of dry nose, lips, throat and skin. Although there are many different types, they basically all do the same thing - a bit like politicians, I suppose, but unlike politicians, humidifiers tend to be effective and efficient.

Put simply, all they do is put moisture in the air. It's how they go about achieving this that varies. For instance, the simplest, usually known as a vaporiser, just boils water and sends it into the air as steam. Others will simply blow air through a wet pad so that the air collects moisture as it weaves it's merry way into the room. The impeller flings water at a diffuser, which breaks the water into fine droplets that float into the air. For the more gadget mad amongst you, high-tech ultrasonic versions use a metal diaphragm vibrating at an ultrasonic frequency, much like the element in a high-frequency speaker, to create water droplets.

It actually doesn't really matter how you get the humidity back into a room so long as the way you do it does it for you.


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