Commonwealth Medical Laboratories
This newsletter is published as a service to our customers.
| CONTENTS:
12 Ways You Can Beat Your Allergies Is It a Cold or an Allergy? Common Sources of Mold and Fungus How can I limit mold exposure? Learning to Live with Animal Allergies |
Is
it a Cold or an Allergy? Stuffy noses, sinus headaches and the like have come to be associated with allergies in the summer and the common cold in the winter. But if you're coughing and sneezing this summer, you're as likely to have a summer cold as seasonal allergies. According to Linda Ford, vice president of the American Lung Association, one easy way to tell the difference is by how long the symptoms last. If they continue for a few weeks, you are more likely to have allergies; but if they last only a few days or a week, and get worse before they get better, you probably have a summer cold. Itchy eyes, nose and throat are more likely to be the result of allergies, while a low-grade fever is more often associated with a cold. Finally, allergy symptoms can be treated with over-the-counter or prescription antihistamines, depending on their severity. Summer colds have no cure but time, though over-the-counter antihistamines or decongestants may relieve some cold symptoms. -Kathleen Lawton Common Sources of Mold and Fungus * Alternaria: Atmospheric mold. Found in dead, dried or decaying vegetation. * Cladosporium (Hormodendrum); Atmospheric mold; increases 1000X before rain. Found on decaying vegetation, leather, rubber, cloth, food, and wood. * Candida (Monilia): Aged or smoked foods; bakery goods, breads, pastries, yeast products, alcoholic beverages and vinegar. * Aspergillus: Found in old damp, musty houses, in onions as black mold, damp hay, leather goods, spoiled foods and decaying vegetation. * Penicillium: Common bread mold, certain cheeses, blue mold rot in some fruits, leather and fabrics. * Mucor: Found in old, musty houses, furniture and furnishings, decaying fruit, barns and barnyards * Fusarium: Green plant parasite * Epicoccum: Decayed vegetation, plant leaves and uncooked fruits. * Helminthosporium: Cereal grain, plants and grasses. * Cephalosporium: Concrete, concrete dust. |