I Have Cat Allergies and Live With Eight Cats—Here’s How I Survive
I’ve never been a fan of taking allergy medication. Even at low doses, it makes me feel off-kilter. Instead, I’ve experimented with non-medical allergy strategies. One of the best I’ve found is micellar water, an affordable common drugstore product. This is a mild, non-drying facial cleansing water that I squirt on a couple of cotton squares and use to wipe my face with a few times a day. Unlike regular water, micellar water is designed to pick up dirt, makeup and other junk from the face, and I’ve found it’s better at removing allergens, too. Bonus: My skin looks amazing!,In my heart, I’ve always been a cat lady—the kind who seeks out kitties at every party and follows more cats than people on Instagram. But I’ve also had cat allergies all my life, sometimes so severe I would tear up and start sneezing as soon as I entered a house with a cat. I never thought I’d get one of my own. As it turns out, I didn’t get one. I got EIGHT. When we moved from the city to a farm five years ago, we started finding feral kittens in our garage, barn, and even abandoned at the end of our long driveway. That’s how we found ourselves, in the span of just a couple years, going from zero cats to, at one point, living with a dozen of them. Some of our rescues have found new, loving homes, so we’re now at eight cats here on the farm in Northern Minnesota. My allergies can get pretty overwhelming as a result. Here’s how I cope with my cat allergies in a house full of kitties—and how you can, too.
