Blog

Allergic to Fido? Good news – you don’t have to give him up! Living with a pet or interacting with animals can create misery for individuals with allergies and asthma. Pets and animals like cats, dogs, ferrets, and even horses, cows, goats can fill our families’ lives with happiness and comfort. If you suffer around your pet with itchy eyes, tearing, sneezing, runny nose, chest congestion, coughing and wheezing, don’t jump right to giving up your pet – instead,... READ MORE

Winter and spring allergies can be a big nuisance. Add in an infection only complicates matters. Allergies target the nose and sinuses – a huge nuisance because we need to breathe, talk, and eat with our mouth and throat. A sore throat that lasts a long time is miserable. So what can we do to fight these infections? Allergies are present in at least a quarter of the population and will affect the eyes, nose, sinuses, throat, lungs, and skin, but a virus can affect the same areas.... READ MORE

The Royals Take on their Toughest Opponent: Chickenpox Two Kansas City Royal players, Alex Rios and Kelvin Herrera, were taken out of the lineup because of a preventable childhood illness; Chickenpox, also known as Varicella. Chickenpox is contagious for 10 to 21 days after exposure to an infected person. It is easily spread through the air, such as a sneeze or cough, as well as physical contact by touching the pox. This image was originally posted to Flickr by ianmunroe at... READ MORE

Kansas City is in the midst of a record-breaking allergy season. We noticed weed pollen in the air early this year. By the end of the first week of August, pollen was detected, setting up allergy sufferers for the wrath of ragweed. Ragweed pollen, as well as all plant pollen, depends on daylight and temperature to trigger the release of pollen. Typically we see ragweed pollen counts appear in the middle of August and they finally drop in late October. Ragweed likes to grow close to water,... READ MORE

An allergy is based on the release of histamine. When you get a bug bite the bug injects something like histamine into your skin, you feel itchy. We have white blood cells all throughout our bodies, including our mouths, skin, eyes, noses, etc., and these white blood cells make histamine. So when you’re exposed to something you’re allergic to, you will release histamine. If you are food allergic, eating that food will cause the release of histamine, making you feel itchy,... READ MORE