Happy Thanksgiving! Happy Black Friday! Happy Cyber Monday! To celebrate Thanksgiving and the start of the holiday shopping season, we are offering a 7% discount on all orders during this week long promotion. All you have to do is shop for allergy relief products and place an order with the promotional code between now and 11:59 pm on December 1st to get the discount.

Additionally, for one lucky person, we are giving away a Sony 32” Bravia LCD Television. Anyone who places an order between 12:00 am Tuesday November 25th and 12:00 am December 2nd is automatically entered into this drawing. A winner will be randomly chosen on Tuesday December 2. To see all of the details, terms, and conditions of the sale and the contest, please visit our promotional page.

The television that we are giving away is a beautiful Sony Bravia. This television provides a crisp, glare-free picture for any bedroom, office, dorm room, or den. This no-frills HDTV emphasizes solid performance and rugged reliability. You receive built-in tuners for your local digital and analog over-the-air broadcasts (antenna required). Plus, a "QAM" cable TV tuner allows cable subscribers to watch unscrambled channels without a set-top box — including HD channels in many areas. It also converts standard-definition video into a picture with more detail and definition. The technology dynamically adjusts backlight levels scene-by-scene to improve overall contrast without masking the details in darker areas of the picture.

Our company, achooallergy.com is the nation’s fastest growing allergy, asthma, and sinus relief products retailer. Since 2000, we have differentiated ourselves from our competition by offering the widest selection of allergy relief products, by delivering the best customer service in the industry, and by working harder to provide more information and resources about allergic diseases.

A study released today by Vanderbilt University suggests that babies born during the fall before the normal cold and flu season are at a greater risk of developing asthma. These children have a 30 percent higher risk for asthma, because of the common infections associated with the cold and flu season. Dr. Tina Hartert, the director of the center for Asthma Research at Vanderbilt University, and her colleagues studied the medical records of 95,000 infants and their mothers in the state of Tennessee.

Why is this study important? The researchers think that environmental exposure to infections may activate genes that predispose children to developing asthma. Nearly every child is infected by respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, between the ages of 3 and 6 months. The study found that autumn babies were at the highest risk for exposure to RSV.

“All infants are exposed to this and it is potentially preventable,” according to Dr. Hartert. “What we were able to show was the timing of birth and the risk of developing asthma moves in time almost to the day with the peak of these viral infections each winter.”

The next step for the researchers is to prove that preventing the infection at this early stage will prevent asthma development. With this research and development, we might be able to prevent a lifelong, deadly disease. We can lessen the impact of breathing problems and help people lead healthier lives.

While surfing the interwebs to do research for our Miele vacuum cleaners renovation project, I discovered a wide range of articles, videos, and information on these special canister vacuums. You can do a quick search and watch European television commercials with the vacuums flying through the air. Or you can check out online discussion groups where people profess their devotion to the Miele brand.

One of the most memorable was a profile piece written just last month in the Seattle Times by writer Tyrone Beason. The title is okay, but the tag line definitely grabs your attention: “A Miele vacuum appeals to the sensual as well as the sensible.” Keep in mind, we are talking about a vacuum cleaner, but the Miele canister vacuum has that affect on some people.

For the article, Beason interviewed Ted Biery a Seattle area Miele dealer. The intriguing part of the article for me is that while the writer stresses the supposed glamour of the vacuums, Biery, the expert, touches on two very simple, but very important points about these vacuum cleaners. First, he stresses their longevity and durability. Biery goes on to comment on how much Miele owners appreciate their new vacuum cleaners:

“Often times, customers are unhappy with their experiences with other vacuums…They’ve replaced their vacuum every three years and they’re tired of that.”

“When most customers discuss other brands, they use subdued terms such as ‘like’, but when they talk about Miele, they literally say ‘love.’ They develop an emotional attachment.”

Miele vacuum cleaners are designed to last for an average of 20 years. Owners appreciate the quiet operation and the odor busting sealed dust bags. There is definitely something special in the looks and styling of these vacuum cleaners. Their colors and modern materials catch the eye, but the durability and functionality will make you fall in love with your new Miele vacuum.

For the second time this year, we here at achoo! Allergy are offering a temporary 20% discount off select air purifiers to help those affected by the Calfifornia wildfires, smoke, and related air pollution.

Fortunately, according to news reports, the winds are calming. Firefighters are making headway in fighting the devastating fires. At this time, no deaths have been reported, but the flames have caused irreparable harm to residents of this area of the country. Close to 1,000 homes have been damaged and over 50,000 people have been evacuated from their homes. Unhealthy smog and ash have shrouded the city.

In our press release, we recommend some steps that people can take in the vicinity of the fires to protect themselves and to help them breathe better:

• Stay indoors as much as possible
• Keep all windows and doors closed. Seal any gaps
• Avoid painting, smoking, or anything that releases noxious fumes into the home
• Focus on cleaning the air in one room and put a quality air purifier in that room.
• Operate the air purifier on its highest setting

To check out our selection of air purifiers, click on this link. To learn more about this temporary program, please call one of our customer service representatives at (800) 339-7123.

With Thanksgiving next weekend and the Christmas holiday season right around the corner, lots of people are gearing up for a ritual as time honored as pumpkin pie with Thanksgiving dinner. Most people will be traveling to visit relatives this holiday season. Whether you are traveling by car or traveling by plane to a far away state, you should be concerned about the air quality on your voyage. For you weary travelers that want to breathe better, we have two great personal space air filters to do the job this holiday season.

When I was growing up, my grandparents often spent the winter season at their summer home in Florida. My family would fly from Ohio to Florida during our school’s Christmas break. Sometimes, we would end up with a cold or the sniffles. Partly, this result was from the poor air quality in airplane cabins due to the recirculation of air that includes contaminants like heated oils, hydraulic fluids, and pesticides. Allergy sufferers on airplanes have to deal with low oxygen levels, chemical pollution, germs, and allergens in the recirculated cabin air. The Plane Clean Air filter is an effective solution to this poor air quality. It creates a curtain of clean air around your face.

In the past few years, we have been driving from Atlanta to see my wife’s family on Thanksgiving Day. Her family lives near Chicago. This is over a ten hour car ride. We have to pass through a couple of cities, and the car exhaust and fumes are terrible. Last year, we tested out the Roomaid Air Purifier with the auto adaptor. This kit allows you to strap the air purifier into your car, plug it into the cigarette lighter, and avoid toxic VOC emissions. If you are seeing relatives but are staying in a hotel, you also can take the lightweight, portable Roomaid out of the car and set it up in your hotel room.

Whether you are taking a short flight or a long car ride to visit your friends and relatives, these solutions will help you breathe better during your travels this holiday season.

When you make a promise to one of your children, you had better deliver. During the lengthy 2008 Presidential campaign, President-elect Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama promised their two daughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, that win or lose they would get a new puppy.

Last week, after the election, one of the first press stories about the new First Family focused on the puppy promise and when the new addition to the family would be residing in the White House. One of the side stories that came out of the reporting was that one of the Obama children is allergic to dogs.

In a widely reported quotation, President-elect Obama summed up the family’s choice in this way. “We have two criteria that have to be reconciled. One is that Malia is allergic, so it has to be hypoallergenic,” said Obama. “On the other hand, our preference would be to get a shelter dog, but a lot of shelter dogs are mutts like me.”

The problem for the Obamas is that these two criteria can be very contrary to each other. Most puppies found in shelters are often mixed breeds. These mutts are not hypoallergenic and will aggravate allergies. Pet dander is the primary trigger for children and adults allergic to pets. The other issue is that most pure bred dogs up for adoption are not puppies. Finding a pure bred, hypoallergenic shelter puppy is very difficult for the average citizen.

The Obama family does have a wide variety of choices for these dogs. According to an article in Newsday, the American Kennel Club created a web site to allow people to vote on which dog the Obamas should select for the White House. The winner of that puppy election was the hypoallergenic Poodle over the soft-coated Wheaten Terrier, the miniature Schnauzer, a Bichon Frise, and the Chinese Crested.

Our advice is that when adopting or purchasing a new pet, people with allergies need to take extra care in their pet selection. Try to selct a hypoallergenic breed. Also, regular bathing and brushing in conjunction with the use of an air purifier can help lessen the amount of pet allergen in the house. In a moment of prescience, one of our staff blogged about their experiences with a hypoallergenic dog in August. To check out that blog post, click on this link.

In October, we blogged about a report released two weeks ago by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which estimates that food allergies in the United States are on the rise. Almost 3 million children in the United States have at least one food allergy. That statistic is an 18 percent increase from just ten years ago. This dramatic rise has prompted doctors and researchers to attack this problem and to find new ways to treat food allergies in children.

This trend is particularly alarming because food allergies have a tremendous impact on the quality of life of a child. Usually, managing food allergies involves avoidance of the food triggers, waiting for the child to outgrow the allergy, and dealing with the allergy symptoms when they occur. This last option is scary because of the severity of some reactions. The stress caused by the outbreaks affects children and parents alike. We need to come up with new and improved ways of helping children combat these allergies.

“Given that the quality of life of a child with food allergy is comparable to the quality of life of a child with diabetes, we urgently need therapies that go beyond strict food avoidance or waiting for the child to outgrow the allergy,” explains Robert Wood, MD, the senior investigator on the study and the director of Allergy & Immunology at John’s Hopkins Children’s Center.

A new study conducted jointly by the Hopkins Children’s Center and Duke University found some positive results for oral immunotherapy in the case of milk allergy. According to Dr. Wood, “Our findings suggest that oral immunotherapy gradually retrains the immune system to completely disregard or to better tolerate the allergens in milk that previously caused allergic reactions.” Even though the researchers only studied 19 children, this study is the first ever double-blinded and placebo-controlled study of milk immunotherapy. Because neither the children nor the investigators knew which children received the placebos, the possibility for bias and error was minimized.

The findings of the study require further research and parents should not try this type of oral immunotherapy without medical supervision, but the positive implications are clear. If we can find a better way to treat children with food allergies, we can improve their daily diet and their quality of life.