hey gang Jackson here and today we're gonna talk about a pretty important topic one that
gets a lot of air play among cat lovers and cat not so lovers and everybody in between and that
is being allergic to cats and then there are a lot of people out there allergic to cats a lot
of people think they're allergic to cats and there's even more people who are afraid that
they might be allergic to cats so I think it's time to clear up some misconceptions
uncover the truth about it and I also want to talk about some common-sense things that
you can do so that you can actually be allergic and live with cats harmoniously
successfully and without a whole bunch of like you know allergic resentment
now I want to start off with a story because it's both funny and very relevant at the same
time so as you might or might not know I was a working musician for many many years which
most the time I was a non working musician but that's a different story anyway I was
playing in a band for a number of years where my drummer was horribly allergic to cats so bad that
after our first couple of rehearsals he came and he said listen I either cannot play with
you anymore or this is what you're gonna have to do and here was the solution our rehearsal space
was a sterile space it was a no cat space which meant that every time I came in for rehearsal I
had to completely take off my clothes and change into my clean clothes and there was some times
I didn't have any clean clothes so you know I sucked it up for the sake of rock and roll and
played in my underwear my drummer after a couple of years of doing this he started going out with
with someone new and he went over to her house for the first time and they were hanging out and
they were just kicking it and all of a sudden her cat walks in the room and he for a second started
reflexively coughing and itching and whatever and then he realized he wasn't allergic to her
cat wait a minute I thought I was allergic to cats so we're gonna get to that in a little bit
that's a very important piece of the puzzle so let's break down what it is that you're allergic
to in the first place okay one of the first big misconceptions is that we are allergic to a cat's
fur what you're allergic to is a protein called fel d1 fel d1 is a protein that is contained in
a cat's saliva when a cat cleans themselves then that saliva dries on their fur it flies
off in the form of dander and kaboom that's what you're allergic to so that's actually good news
bear with me because the thing is just because you have allergies to cats you don't it means
you're allergic to that protein and different cats make different amounts of that protein
that's why my drummer friend was able to go over to a new girlfriend's house and not be
allergic to her cat because her cat did not put off that egregious amount of fel d1 that
would usually trigger his allergy so that's good news for you guys that does mean that
you could be allergic to some cats and not all of them and you could have a cat in your life
[Music] the first thing that you want to do if you're allergic to cats and you want to continue
living with cats where you would love to get a cat into your life is go to see an allergist
it is so important for them to be able to do an allergy test on you to confirm that you're
allergic to FAL d1 and then to determine a proper course of action for instance over-the-counter
antihistamines may do the trick if you are moderately or less moderately allergic to
cats now if you really have a big allergy you can do what I did when I was a kid I was allergic to
everything including animals of all stripes in fact I was probably allergic to zebras but my
mom took me to an allergist and took me through a course of immunotherapy immunotherapy is getting
shots allergy shots you get them about twice a week for about six months then you get boosters
for a few years after that and let me tell you something folks I wouldn't be working this job
to this day if it weren't for those shots I am now allergy free I'm not saying everybody will
be but it's a great thing to try if you really want to live with animals and who doesn't want
to live with animals you want to live with animals right so let's deal with some of the more obvious
things that you can do to keep FAL d1 that dried up nasty allergen from floating around your house
the first thing that you can do is think about the things that the allergies itself would bind to all
of your house I mean anything that with fabric like this on it is going to be a trap for those
things so first of all of course vacuuming on a regular basis is pretty important and the great
thing is that vacuums themselves have come a long way especially with the advent of hepa filters and
how a lot of these vacuums have hepa filters in them which of course you want at the same token
what we're talking about hepa filters in my house we have air filters in every room it helps with
smell and it also helps with any particular allergens that are floating around these HEPA
filters if you're getting an actual HEPA and not just one of those knockoffs can reduce up to 99%
of floating allergens in your house not just cats but everything else as well also you can decrease
the amount of surfaces that hold on to dander around your house for instance instead of having
drapes you can have blinds something that you can clean not have to vacuum and doesn't just hold
on but they the same thing with carpets versus hardwood floors I know it sounds like a sacrifice
but hey man if you're allergic and you really want and keep hanging out with your cat family
members which I really hope you want to do it's a pretty small sacrifice to make brushing your cat
that's important no matter how you slice it but it's even more important with cats that you're
allergic to because of course you would love to remove that dander from them and to remove dead
hairs from them before they go flying off into the ether and get up your nose and everything
else try if you can to have a non allergic family member do the brushing if you have a catio you can
bring them out to the catio to brush them so the hair flies off in another direction you can even
brush while wearing a mask and that will help those hairs going up your nose but but that's
a great proactive thing you can do and it's also really good for your cat one misconception which
I have talked about before is that bathing your cat on a regular basis will help this problem
it really won't it actually strips your cats of their natural oils which those oils are not what
you're allergic to it is the saliva and no matter how many times you bathe your cat they're still
gonna have saliva another thing that you want to do for your cat anyway but it also helps with
allergies to a certain degree is trimming their nails because again they scratch themselves they
get some of that protein under their nails they give you a little love scratch and now you got it
under your skin so just taking the points off your cat's nails on a regular basis again is something
that you should be doing anyhow but even better if you're allergic now one other lesser-known
source of the allergen is in a cat's urine so another thing to do that's really important is
to clean your cat's litter box regularly and I'm talking about multiple times a day to make sure
the urine isn't just sitting there also likewise you want to use a litter that clumps well and
doesn't track all over the place just a really good litter is going to help and finally you know
that excuse that you have to tell your significant other or roommate hey you got a scoop the litter
if you want to keep the cat because you know I can't do it another thing you can do is make sure
that you're washing your cat's bedding fairly regularly or at the very least you're using a
little sticky roller and making sure that you're picking up the hair off of their beds along with
the rest of your furniture but again the less that you have in the house that'll hold on to
this protein to the hair to the dander is going to help you in the long run now here's a touchy
subject for me and anyone else who cares about the welfare of cats hypoallergenic cats boy oh
boy man if you want to talk about something that just gets me going hypoallergenic cats are that
thing there was actually a craze a couple years ago where people were like no these cats are
hypoallergenic and then all of a sudden people are going out and buying expensive breeds of cats
thinking that they're not gonna be allergic they wind up being allergic and then they rehome these
cats and now we're creating an entire population of purebred cats looking for homes because people
thought they'd be not allergic and irresponsible breeders were we're touting that hypoallergenic
nonsense here's the truth folks listen here's the truth no cat is hypoallergenic all cats make the
protein fil d1 that's in their saliva and in their dander all cats that said there are certain breeds
who have been known to be less allergenic but why would you take that chance there is
no reason to take that chance when there's no guarantee whatsoever even snakes the hairless
cats they still make the protein there's still a chance that you will be allergic to them so please
don't try to change the cat in order to be able to live with them change your environment do what
you can to change yourself and you can live with these guys let's just not go out there and create
a market for a cat that just doesn't exist and we wind up rehoming beloved family members just
because we're afraid that somebody else is going to have an allergic reaction so you guys there it
is hopefully I've shed some light on the truth the fallacies surrounding being allergic to cats so
let's recap first FEL d1 it's a protein secreted in a cat's saliva it is the allergen not their
fur themselves but this protein you may not have symptoms at all with one cat and have a lot of
symptoms with another you can really do a lot to make sure that your home is as free of fel d1 as
you could possibly make it so that your allergic response isn't that bad brushing your cat on the
regular is so very important and then there's what you can do to help build up resistance yeah you
can take medicine for this on a daily basis and over-the-counter antihistamine might do the trick
immunotherapy is a real thing it helped me live with cats and it could help you as well the first
thing to do of course is to go see an allergist hopefully that works guys if you know somebody
who's allergic if you know somebody who comes into your house and starts sneezing and coughing those
are the people who need to watch this video so please share it along and at the same time don't
forget that you can get these words of wisdom on a regular basis if you just make sure to
hit that Bell make sure that you subscribe and check out all these other places where you can
catch up with me and I hope you do alright until next time you guys light love and mojo to you too
[Music]
yeah [Music]