Horse Allergic OH?

Dogstar

Dogstar

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Am I alone with an OH who has a horse allergy (mainly physical rather than mental!) How do you cope? My routine involves stripping jods etc off in the hallway and washing smelly horse hair before retiring to bed (probably should do that anyway, tehe) We have been together 12 years but it's a big issue :-0
 
I'm allergic to horses myself....

Used to take me around 4 hours to recover from a 1hr lesson, including the frozen eye packs, allergy tablets, 49 boxes of tissues, cream for the contact rash I used to get and my asthma inhaler!!!
Luckily 12 years on, I've come out of it a bit....now it just seems to be white horses that affect me - so you can imagine when my mum took on a piebald!!!! :o:rolleyes:
 
Wow you have some determination there! How bizarre that only white hairs effect you now!!?? Hmm three of mine are greys.....got me wondering :-0
 
Get him to spend more time with them rather than avoiding them! I'm allergic to cats but I have 4. When I get a new cat it takes me months with lots of nasal sprays and antihistamines but I do eventually seem to build up a tolerance to them. I cannot touch other peoples though?

Maybe if your OH spent more time with the horses he would build up some tolerance??
 
My mate's hubby suffers if near horses so while not an issue for them at home with clothing etc he cant come and help or support her much at shows which they both would like.

My dr told me when my hayfever and allergy related asthma so bad to give up my horse- he says this every year and it drives me batty!

I cannot use nasal sprays as the ones that work are steroid based and I have side effects of these but it was managed not too bad with a strong antihist and another for asthma at night through june and july but now it is bugging me again so might have to give in and go for the injection..........
 
Thanks for the thoughts and suggestions. I have a feeling there is no easy answer to this one, he isn't keen to help with the grooming and mucking out (unfortunately!) so not likely to get him immune!
 
My OH is allergic to horses aswell, but we've found since we've been going out and he's been spending more time with them he's becoming less and less allergic to them. To begin with he was having to wear a dust mask but now all he has to do is take and allergy tablet and take breaks from being actually in the stables but otherwise he manages a lot better than he used to and the only problem we have now is that he gets annoyed that he can't do more haha. I think im really lucky as he loves helping :)
 
My OH has emphysema so has to be really careful with dust. When we had our first horse she was on DIY and he was planning to do the mucking out etc at weekends, but it's just not an option.
Our current horse is on livery, and OH rides her quite a bit, but can't groom and has to be careful with dusty arenas.
I also try to keep horse rugs etc out of the house - although there are a few in our loft! :)
It's manageable with a bit of care - he hates other forms of exercise, so the doc accepts that riding at least keeps him healthier than he would be otherwise :D
 
I'm slightly allergic to horse hair (although it doesn't affect me when riding unless I'm in a dusty indoor school) and hay/straw etc. Its only really bad when the horses are losing their winter coats, and my grey sheds absolutely loads each year-I only last about ten mins before I have to stop scraping the hair off! Building up a resistance is the way to go, I'm the same with dogs-if I'm around them all the time then I'm ok, but other people's dogs often make me sneeze.

Antihistamines work for me on days where I really don't want to be sneezing all day. Or he could try homeopathy, my doctor referred me last year for this as I wanted to try something else to cure my hayfever and allergies. My hayfever this year has been so much less severe, it could be linked to the homeopathy, or it could just be me growing out of it-I hope.
 
I'm pretty allergic to horse hair - the whole sneezing, runny nose, swollen eyes, rashes, coughing makes me want to cry sometimes! I get by on a concoction of antihistamines, nose spay, inhalers, eye drops and homeopathic meds, which really do wonders. It's really difficult though, because there's no solid cure, you just have to try different things until you find something that works for you.
 
My OH is allergic to horses. Quite badly too, although still supported me and wanted me to have another horse.
I got the horse in march, at which point a single horse hair would set him off, and then he needed benadryl (huge doses) and nasal sprays, eye drops, inhalers as it induced asthma etc etc.
So i had to literally get changed at the yard into clean clothes, leave the horsey stuff at my mums who lives next to the yard in my tackroom and come home and run to the bathroom and have a full shower, hair wash etc.
So after lots of chats about it, and him saying that he wont get any better without exposure, i get changed at the yard, but come home and spend the whole evening without having a shower untill just before bed.
Then i used to come home in my riding stuff and bring it into the house and get changed but leave the stuff in the house.
He used to come and see the horse etc.
Now i can come home, in my riding stuff, sit around on the sofa all evening in my jods and tshirt that i have groomed, stroked, ridden, handled hairy numnahs etc in and he doesnt react.
The other weekend he came down to the yard and was in the barn where there are 18 horses the whole time whilst i groomed the horse and faffed, and he was stroking him etc and he was in there for about 30 mins and was ok.
So gradually through gently increased exposure he is getting alot better.
We are looking into getting a dog now.....so the process will begin with sorting out which dogs are a definate no no, which ones are not too bad and will be livable with through exposure etc etc.
He will never be free of allergies i dont think......but its definately managable and gets better in time.
 
My OH is also allergic to horses, and on reading the other posts and thinking about it, he seems to be more allergic to our grey mare than to any other horse. In fact if we are at home and he has a sneezing fit, he says that the pony is thinking about him to make him sneeze! He takes piriton if he needs to be handling the ponies he's geenerally ok if he doesn't touch them.
 
I'm allergic to horses and dogs too. However I have found that it is perfectly possible to desensitize myself to them by ignoring the unpleasantness for a few weeks and just getting stuck in!

I've had horses all my life and I've always been like this. I'm not allergic to my own horses, but if I go to a show, or onto another yard I last 5 minutes before my throat starts itching and my eyes start watering. If I go to a show I always take a Piriton, but I don't take anything unless I am going to come into contact with new horses.

I also sometimes have a problem if I come back from a long holiday. I seem to have to desensitise myself to my own horses again, which is annoying, but it only takes about a week.

It's the same with dogs. Me and my OH got our first puppy 2 years ago now, and for the first month I felt like I had the symptoms of flu, my allergies were so bad, but then my body sorted itself out and I am now not in anyway allergic to her.

Bodies are amazing things! I think the reason the population in general is allergic to more things now, compared to at anytime in the past, is because we are all too clean, and we don’t allow our bodies to be exposed enough. (HHO possible exception? :D)
 
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