Having asthma, or any respiratory illness, can hamper everyday living. When living with a chronic disease, you must work to not aggravate it, lest you worsen your symptoms. But what if there was something you could do to relieve it and, perhaps, improve it?
Home cleaning, particularly when done by a professional green cleaning service, may bring relief to those who have asthma. But you have to be careful when doing your asthma cleaning, lest you make it worse.
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What is Asthma?
Asthma, a chronic disease of the lungs, causes a person’s airways to narrow and get inflamed, thereby making it difficult to breathe. Doctors, referring to it as a chronic respiratory disease, may also call it “bronchial asthma.”
Nearly 25 million Americans live with asthma, accounting for approximately 1.6 million emergency room visits annually. It is crucial to have treatment for it because, without it, you may be visiting your hospital frequently or often suffering in your daily life.
Asthma creates inflammation of the bronchial tubes by creating sticky secretions that line the tubes. The sufferers then have symptoms when these airways inflame, tighten, or become mucus filled.
3 Major Signs of Asthma:
- Airway blockage
- Inflammation
- Airway irritability
Having these issues can cause the following symptoms:
- Coughing
- Wheezing
- Shortness of breath
- Tightness, pressure, or chest pain
- Difficulty sleeping due to breathing issues
Lessen The Severity of Asthma with Careful Home Cleaning
Not all people with asthma have all of these symptoms, but it is essential to take steps to lessen the severity of your symptoms whenever possible when you are diagnosed with asthma. Making sure to do your home cleaning carefully, with your asthma cleaning mindset in place, must be centered in your mind.
Asthma cleaning is an essential tool in your asthma control toolbox. However, how you do your asthma cleaning can help make a difference in improving indoor air quality or exacerbating your symptoms and worsening your asthma.
Wait, Home Cleaning Can Worsen Asthma?
Your primary goal when you are doing your asthma cleaning is to reduce or remove allergens and any asthma triggers like mold, dust mites, and animal dander. How you do your asthma cleaning will determine whether you are merely home cleaning or making a difference in the status of your chronic health condition.
Your cleaning tools, like feather dusters, may move dust around rather than remove them from your environment. Additionally, some vacuum cleaners, without an airtight seal, may release particles that they are sucking up right back into your air.
Another point of concern can be home cleaning products. Many commonly used home cleaning products, even those used for your asthma cleaning, can contain strong-smelling scents, toxic chemicals, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that might possibly exacerbate your asthma symptoms.
A study determined that regular use of some of these home cleaning products could be as detrimental to your health as smoking several cigarettes daily. One way to assist in asthma cleaning without worsening your asthma symptoms is to make sure when you deep clean you utilize a green cleaning service.
What is a Green Cleaning Service?
A green cleaning service is a professional home cleaning service committed to only using eco-friendly products, tools, and methods that won’t harm your health, home, or the environment. With a specialized green cleaning service, you can be assured that they will only use home cleaning products that have:
- No phosphates
- No chlorine
- No artificial fragrances or colors
- Biodegradable ingredients and packaging
- Environmentally friendly ingredients
Also, some of the green cleaning ingredients may state that their items are fair trade, which indicates that the products meet specific environmental and labor standards by those that produce them.
How Can a Green Cleaning Service Improve My Asthma?
Surprisingly, indoor air quality can carry more pollutants than outdoor air. One of the reasons for this is because of the amount of dust. Hiring a green cleaning service to do a deep cleaning and then following it up with routine scheduled cleaning will help to minimize the dust and debris present in your home and significantly reduce the allergen and irritants in the air.
A green cleaning service is impactful, as the house cleaners also use tools conducive to limiting the amount of dust, allergens, and irritants returning into your home’s air.
This would mean that they might utilize the following during their home cleaning:
- Microfiber cloths
- Vacuums fitted with HEPA filters
How do these help with asthma cleaning? Microfiber cloths trap dust particles better than traditional cleaning tools, such as feather dusters, which might move dust around rather than capture it and remove it from the area altogether. Additionally, because microfiber cloths can be washed and reused, they are less harmful to the environment than disposable cleaning wipes.
Vacuums fitted with a special HEPA filter are recommended in all asthma cleaning endeavors because, without a HEPA filter, vacuums can recirculate dirt back into the air.
What are HEPA Filters?
HEPA stands for “high-efficiency particulate air,” and they’re specifically designed to capture and remove 99.97 percent of all particles that pass through. They were initially designed in the 1940s to protect the workers in nuclear facilities from breathing in the radiated airborne particles.
In the 1960s, they were broadly used in hospitals to stop the spread of airborne germs, and soon after, they began to appear in household appliances, such as vacuum cleaners, air purifiers, and even whole-house air-filtration systems. Anyone with asthma or any respiratory illness should ensure that they have a vacuum fitted explicitly with a HEPA filter or hire a home cleaning or green cleaning service that utilizes one.
Pure House Cleaning specializes in being a green cleaning service that customizes to customers’ requests. Have you recently had a home remodel? Call for a post-construction clean-up. Need to start from scratch to get on top of your allergies? Call and schedule a deep clean to see what a difference a green cleaning service can make for you.
Check the list of home cleaning services to discover what a difference Pure House Cleaning can make for your asthma. You’ll find that only green home cleaning products will ever be used for your Seattle-area home cleanings, with popular brands like Love, Home, Planet, Nature’s Source, Ecover, and Seventh Generation. Your home cleaning is in safe hands with Pure House Cleaning.