Allergic to my roborovski Poppy?..

[RoboPoppy]

Hey everyone,

I was reading all information I could find, but I am running out of tricks to try. I hope someone can help me, because I am having major allergic problems.

I got by robo hamster Poppy 2 weeks ago. I placed her in with hemp de-dusted bedding. For the first week everything was great. I had no problems whatsoever. Then all of the sudden one evening I started coughing non-stop (no watery eyes or sneezing). That continue for two days and I was 100 percent sure it's allergic, because otherwise I felt great. Then I got actually sick and could barely move, went to doctor, told me I have bronchitis and it's unlikely, that it's allergic, since I lack other symptoms. At this time I already started to tame Poppy few days ago. I think this was first days she climbed on my hand already and also nibbled me once, but very gently, because my hand smelled like food. Then flu symptoms went away and I was again only feeling allergic cough without fever.

Now few days ago I started to feel my nose is full, started sneezing, my cough got worse, I have difficulties breathing (i'm not trying to be dramatic, but sometimes coughs were so bad I was having trouble catching air). Since hammy is the only new thing here I decided to change her bedding to carefress ultra, in speculation I might be allergic to her bedding. That didn't help, since I'm waking up with massive headaches and full nose. I got an air purifier now, but also no great results, still coughing like hell.

I am renting one room apartment and cannot take her out anywhere. I had all sorts of animals as a kid - dogs, cats, also a syrian hamster, birds - no problem. Last year I had first time in my life breathing allergies in spring (not warm yet now in Berlin though and pollen count outside is very low at the moment). I also was babysitting my friends dog for 4 days and got a reaction to him, since he was shedding. I never was allergic to animals in my life, but since few years my immune system is just very cazy.

I left air purifier on at home and slept at my boyfriends place 2 nights - nose is much better, but still have cough. Now back at home and cough again very annoying and nose is blocking.

All that said - does anyone have experiences like this? One thing for sure - I love my Poppy so much, I was already crying yesterday just helpless, because I can't think of giving her away. I made a lot of research and having allergy to bedding is not likely, since I had no problem putting it in the cage. Allergy to Poppy's dander could have taken a week to trigger my cough? And it was so sudden and intense when it started.. So I am thinking, could it be the first time I got nibbled. I honestly want to think anything else but not allergy to her..

And if I am allergic - it's severe, because my throat is getting smaller and smaller each day. I don't think I can ignore it.. If I have to give her away would die, I also feel so bad about stressing her, she just settled in.. How would I know she would be taken care of..

Any advise or speculations are welcome

[cypher]

Really sorry to hear you're having such a bad reaction, it is possible you could be allergic to Poppy but it does seem surprising when you've not had a problem with other animals.
Both hemp & carefresh can cause reactions in some people, can you get any paper based substrate where you are? It might be worth trying if you can just to rule that out. Anything else in her cage that could possibly be causing a problem do you thin?

[RoboPoppy]

Thank you so much for the tip about paper bedding! I just checked and I can find some to order. However, I feel really bad to bother her so much with changes. I was planning to wait 2 weeks and do only partial changes of bedding to make it less stressful for her (i do clean her toilet and droppings every day). And then I had to clean the whole thing and take her out of cage during that.. She was so concerned..
Also I was seeing her scratching herself more now since i changed to carefresh, i am afraid she could be even allergic to it and with all these free days of Easter nothing is working in Germany. I feel so bad if she is.. could I use toilet paper meanwhile? If she's allergic I cannot let her scratch herself for days.. But I was reading about using toilet paper as bedding online and it made me concerned if she ingests it and how to know if it doesn't have chemicals.
Other things in cage:
1) chinchilla sand that I use for her toilet and also for bath. She enjoys it so much, if this could be a problematic substance as well Poppy will hate me. Are there any good alternatives if this causes allergies?
2) I also was feeding her dried hay in the beginning as snacks and that is out now already since days.
3) I also used chipsi nesting material that is 100percent untrated softwood, but there's barely any left now, I just placed some in her house for the smell of old nesting.

I also noticed one of my plants that I got this winter is blooming and I remember it was already visible earlier this week or so, so that's going to be gifted to a friend asap just in case. I'm grasping for any hope here.

[Pebbles82]

I'm also really sorry to hear this. I'm asthmatic and allergic to all kinds of things - including hemp bedding and most animals. So it was wonderful to find hamsters are the only pet I haven't been allergic to. It is possibly you're allergic to hamsters (or a certain species) but very uncommon. I also wouldn't rule out the bedding yet - the hemp drove me bonkers, just the smell of it. And Carefresh is very dusty.

One thing I do know is that you can be allergic to a lot of things and be absolutely fine. But if you have one big allergy and are exposed to it - you suddenly can get much more sensitive to all your smaller ones that don't bother you.

As you've been getting allergy problems to a number of things this last year, it can be hard to pin these things down and you could really do to ask your Doctor to refer you to an allergy specialist for testing. If you can find your "big" allergy and avoid it, the others shouldn't bother you too much.

I'm not sure how old you are but did anything happen around the time you first started getting allergy symptoms? Any other illness, or an operation etc/

I can see you're really upset that it might be Poppy (and don't know). Maybe if your Doctor gives you some allergy medication for now while waiting for a referral - your symptoms will improve and you can gradually work out whether it is Poppy or something else without being so badly affected.

I completely understand as I had to give away my dog due to severe allergy and it was heartbreaking.

[Pebbles82]

Bedding - any wood bedding or hemp bedding sets me off (even Chipsi shavings could cause an allergic reaction). Carefresh has been known to cause an allergic reaction in hamsters (it goes through quite a few chemical processes to become what it is from wood pulp I believe - more so than paper does).

Ruling things out is very hard. Testing might be the way to go

[RoboPoppy]

Thanks so much Serendipity7000! That's very insightful as I am very late to the 'allergy party' and quite clueless - i'm 28. I did have dust mites allergy past year and ended up buying new sheets and mattress. I also work a lot with fabrics as fashion designer and I had 2 reactions to certain material dust in past year as well. And now imagine it all in one room apartment... So clearly that all put together is not doing well for me. But I never had such severe breathing problems and cough, always nose problems.

I also didn't have anything but wisdom teeth removed in past years. A number of doctors told me I had problems with immune system related to work stress.

So I will change the bedding again and see. I'm sitting with dust mask in my own home, but i'm determined to keep this little creature and at least will fight as long as I can. I am planning to go to see allergy specialist in near future, just afraid how much money it will cost, but obviously I cannot avoid this now. I also hope Poppy will not suffer from allergy to carefresh herself..

[Pebbles82]

I do know allergy services are way better in Germany than in the Uk. Didn't realise you had to pay? Is there no national health service type thing?

I will tell you one thing. I had severe asthma and allergies most of my life. I had to spent most of the summer indoors and on steroids each year. Everything got much worse during a very stressful period when I got divorced and I started have reactions to certain foods as well. Long story short, I saw a specialist and went on a special diet and quickly found my biggest allergy was wheat. I already knew i was allergic to moulds. Add wheat and mould together and what do you get? Bread! As the specialist told me, if you remove the biggest culprit the others don't affect you hardly because it's a kind of total body load thing. It was hard at first but since then I have not eaten bread. And after stopping my asthma disappeared almost completely. I could walk outside in the summer without getting hayfever or wheezing and all kinds of things that set me off, no longer did. Conventional doctors haven't always cottoned on to the total body load thing and tend to just treat/suppress the symptoms. I still need medication but just the minimum to keep things stabilised. It literally changed my life finding my two big allergies.

I think you're right that a stressful period can set off or worsen allergies - your adrenal glands are working over time when under stress and if it gets to a kind of adrenaline burn out level then you don't have enough adrenaline to counteract an allergic reaction. That usually settles down though.

I have always thought my asthma and allergies were triggered after a general anaesthetic for an operation as a child and this has happened to some people. Which is why I asked about operations. I got worse after my next general anaesthetic in my twenties, which was for wisdom teeth. But it doesn't mean it's permanent as I got better than I had ever been when finding my big allergy.

A few years ago I decided to do as much research as possible into any kind of alternative medicine for asthma so I didn't need inhalers any more (even though they were very low dose) and didn't think I'd find anything. After all,if there was something, there would be a cure for asthma. However I did find something and it also worked and I stopped my inhalers completely. It's homeopathic so safe, but not like most homeopathic medicines as it is homeopathic doses of certain herbs. It had one name in the USA and a different name in the Uk. In the Uk they are only allowed to sell it as a hayfever remedy for licensing reasons but it is sold for asthma in other countries and it certainly worked for me. It's called Luffa Complex and sold by A Vogel. It's supposed to take 2 to 3 months to work but I found it worked within a couple of weeks and I was off my inhalers completely.

Having said that - I now take them again in a low maintenance dose, because although I was fine and medication free for 9 months, when something very stressful happened the asthma was triggered temporarily and was quite acute. So I just have a low preventative dose now to avoid an attack in extreme circumstances.

I was just thinking if you wanted to try something like that and see if it helps. But it doesn't do the detective work of working out what the main culprit is. I got the tablet form rather than the tincture as it was easier.

It sounds as if you are hypersensitive at the moment, so everything is setting you off. And the anxiety that goes with it makes it a bit of a vicious circle. General relaxation things and breathing meditation type things can help a lot to balance things out in the body and relieve the breathing difficulties.

But seriously if it is affecting your breathing - get to a Doctor and ask for an inhaler while waiting for further tests. Can a Doctor not just refer you to a hospital for skin testing?

[cypher]

I wouldn't put hay in the cage again, that can definitely trigger allergies so that might have been a contributing factor if nothing else, I've no idea if the Chipsi stuff could cause a problem or not, I do react to chinchilla sand a bit if there's a lot that's been thrown around the cage & it gets dusty when I'm cleaning things out but it doesn't tend to be an allergen as such so it sounds as though nothing in your cage other than possibly the substrate should be a problem.
Allergies are very strange & unpredictable things in my experience but I hope you can sort this out & continue to enjoy life with Poppy.

[RoboPoppy]

I have a private insurance and it makes things difficult, because they try to save money in your expense. Also you have to pay in advance and then file for reimbursement and it is hard to have hundreds of euros on hand all the time.

It is very interesting to hear about your food allergy connection with overall health, because I am suffering from intolerance to foods since 2 years now. Of course it's all connected in the body, but it's just one of those things that doesn't occur to me until I know it.. I have been put on Low Fodmap diet, which increased my life quality enormously. Was thinking to make food allergy test for ages and now, but i does not make much sense, because they don't show intolerance, just allergies. I guess I will do both just in case - food and breathing. I am also going to try that medicine if I can get my hands on it! This was very very helpful for me, because I feel very lost. My general doctor did refer me to Gastroenterology specialist last year for food allergies, but she was hesitating to refer me to Allergy specialist. So i'm just going to push through and ask for it. And ask for some medicine to help me with symptoms meanwhile. Thing is, if it is animal protein i'm allergic to, it would take ages to get it out of my house anyway, I have so many fabrics stocked up in here in my studio apartment. Serendipity, could you tell me how it was with your dog?

Thanks for opening my eyes to take care of an overall problem as well. Now that i'm talking here I see that I do have problems with immune system. I was just kind of living with it thinking 'well, another health mystery to live with' and brushing it off.

Will try to clean the cage again though! Poor Pop will be stressed again..
I handle her with gloves now just in case. Which is sad, I also see she wants to progress in interaction and it's just not fair for the little fluff. The more time passes, the more i'm thinking that she doesn't deserve to have to live with me being allergic (whether I am or not, doesn't change the situation now). She wants out of the cage time, I can tell that for sure, she's a natural explorer.. Therefore i'm torn apart, she's still very young, she deserves more freedom and someone to cuddle her freely. If this all allergy thing takes ages to find out, it's just not fair to her. For me it's few months and for her its a chunk of her life. It's her first home and I'm making this experience frustrating. It breaks my heart to see her wanting to explore more, I was watching her tonight and feeling like I imprisoned her. I don't know, I start to understand that i'm selfish in wanting to keep her through all of this. I'm not sure what's the right thing to do. If i'm allergic then I have to give her away and if not I would waste all this time for her when she could have a better life. :/

[Pebbles82]

In the Uk there is an allergy testing clinic at Guy's hospital where they do skin prick tests and challenge tests (challenge tests are much more reliable) for every allergen you can think of, from the usual animals and pollens and also for foods. I had to go there for drug allergy testing and there was a boy there being tested for zillions of things. He turned out to be highly allergic to a particular kind of nut (not peanuts). I think it's the only way to get to the root of things is to get tested and find out what the main culprit is. It's the only place in the Uk where you can get tested for drug allergy or challenge tests in safe conditions.

The Fodmap diet is good - my Mother had to go on it and it helped her for a digestive issue - gluten free i think isn't it? Allergies are classed as an immune condition yes.

This is the Luffa Complex

https://www.avogel.co.uk/herbal-reme...fever-tablets/

It's a pain trying to remember to suck tablets especially between meals - I took them twice a day - three times a day was too difficult between meals. Didn't expect it to help but it did - a lot. You can see it's sold for hayfever in the Uk but people in other countries say it's for asthma. They're not allowed to say it's for asthma in the Uk.

Dog allergy - my symptoms were different depending on what kind of dog it was! The ones that moult a lot like labradors, it was severe asthma leading to attacks - even in a short space of time. With dogs that were supposed to be non moulting like terriers the asthma was very slight but terrible skin problems - I only had to touch them to itch and burn in seconds and my whole face would swell so I could hardly open my eyes.

Since removing my "biggy" I can even tolerate being around dogs - for short periods but wouldn't want to risk having one again.

It would be very sad if you were allergic to poppy but maybe see how it goes after the bedding is changed and get some help from your Doctor to relieve symptoms for now as it doesn't sound good if something is affecting your breathing. They could at least give you a reliever inhaler for now.

Could it also be possible that you have had a bad dose of flu? I am thinking the illness symptoms and bad cough. But if staying away from Poppy elsewhere means you improve then it is something in your home, whether it's the bedding, Poppy or something else. That's why I asked if you'd moved recently. In case it was something else in the house (eg mould/dry rot which can affect people).

Have you moved house recently? That is a real pain if it's a medical insurance issue - I thought if a Doctor thought you needed a hospital referral it would be free kind of.