Moving toward a healthier life

We have recently learned that our oldest son has allergies todust, dander, and mold. He also has what is known as asthmatic croup; in essence, he has asthma that manifests itself as a croupy cough and lasts sometimes for weeks at a time. It has gotten progressively worse over the last couple of years to where he has had to use inhalers regularly and at times steroids. We were finally recommended to go to an allergist to find out if he had any potential allergies that may be a trigger for his asthma. Low and behold, he does. Of course the doctor’s first suggestion was to get C~ on daily doses of prescription meds like Zyrtec or Allegra. My wife and I don’t have a problem with prescription medicines per se; they allow a great number of people to live much more satisfying lives than they would be able to without them. However, our belief has always been that we should try to do our best through healthy choices and environmental changes to try and remedy the problems first, and then move to medicines as a final alternative. It is a common belief among many health experts that because of our quickness to use and sometimes abuse both prescription and over the counter medicines has caused many common ailments such as colds and flu viruses to mutate into strains that are not affected by current medications. I also believe in allowing our bodies to have time to learn to adapt to and deal with it’s ailments on its own.

(DISCLAIMER: I would by no means ever deny anyone in my family, or anyone else for that matter, medicines that are required for their immediate care or well being. I do not advocate nor do I promote living life free from pharmaceuticals as the expense of ones health. C~’s asthma is not critical right now, but could progress to that point if not dealt with.)

His asthma was one of the main reasons that my wife and I began to research natural cleaners and more organic lifestyle options to begin with; he has no one on either side of his family with asthma, and we had learned that a potential cause for it may be the daily exposure to chemicals in cleaners, detergents and household furnishings that we all endure. It is a great concern of ours that his dependance on medications has been growing, and for all of the simpler changes that we have made previously it still seems to be progressing. When we learned about potential causes, or at least things that may be aggrivating it, we wanted to do what we we able to to create a healthier environment. Since we have been using organic cleaners he has not had a major “episode”, however his worst time of the year has always been in the fall – spring. (The times when you spend the most time indoors.)
The other main suggestion that our allergist had for us to try to control it, is to remove as much of the carpeting in our house as possible; particularly in the common areas. Since our position is that we want to try to control his asthma environmentally as much as possible before putting him on drugs we are actively pursuing this. I have done some reading on the VOC’s contained in your typical carpet and padding and we were going to try to take this step in the future anyway, removing the carpet that is, this just changed the timeline. So now we will spend the majority of September ripping out approx 750 sq ft of carpet and padding and replacing it with red oak flooring. I know this is not the most environmentally sustainable flooring option that we could have chosen, and were it not for the fact that we already have large portions of our home done in this material we probably would have chosen another, but it is a flooring that will not need to be replaced for the life of the home, and in such will greatly reduce both our contribution to the landfill, as well as future owners of the home, not to mention providing a much healthier place to live. We’re planning a trip to the green building center in Salt Lake City this weekend to look in to some finishing options that will not include us having to live with all the nasty fumes from Polyurethane or the like. I am leaning towards a penetrating sealant based on natural oils and waxes rather than a surface sealant, but need to educate myself further on durability issues.
Hopefully in by thanksgiving we should have a much healthier living environment for our family and can minimize our need to have our kids on prescription medications. Do any of you or your family members have to deal with this type of respiratory problems? Any advice or things I could take into consideration would be great.
P~