The Asthma Center

Are pets causing my asthma?

If you have symptoms around any furry animal and/or your allergy skin tests reveal sensitivity to domestic animal dander, then pets may play a significant role in your asthma symptoms. Asthma symptoms may persist long beyond pet exposure. You may find it hard to believe that your pet is causing your symptoms since the symptoms are not clearly related to exposure. On the other hand, negative allergy skin tests for pet dander and a negative history of symptoms around animals would strongly suggest that a pet is not playing a significant role in your asthma.

Some preventive measures include:

  • Keeping the pet out of the bedroom
  • Using preventive asthma medications
  • Maintaining excellent control of asthma
  • Immunotherapy

However, there are times that the risks of severe asthma are so great that the pet must be removed from the home in order to control symptoms.