I've always had a sensitive nose. The earliest memory that I had with it was when I was 3 or 4 years old, we were jumping on the bed and possibly exposing dust in the air. I was just sneezing nonstop for hours after that.
I also notice that it gets triggered when I'm in a new place. So I may have both allergic rhinitis and non-allergic rhinitis.
Ok so these are not diagnosed by a doctor or anything, but just from mere observation as I don't think it's necessary for me to consult a doctor for this. But whenever there's too much dust in the air, it triggers my rhinitis which makes me sneeze literally nonstop, have runny nose, pain from nose, and itchy and watery eyes. These are so annoying and would make me stop working since you really can't work when you're sneezing 5-10 times every 20 seconds lol. Sometimes the sneezing gets too hard that I literally pee myself and my abs would hurt lol. :/
So that's the known cause for me: dust and change in weather (or being in a different place).
Just recently, I noticed I've been getting them more than usual. There wasn't any changes in cleaning habits or changes in weather or anything so I was really puzzled as to what's causing it. I thought I was just having common colds until I noticed that when my face gets too itchy, it starts.
I know I have rhinitis so I tried cleaning more again but even when I'm done, it still gets triggered.
Then I finally kinda figured it out: it was Mew that's causing it. XD
You know, I have 3 cats and they shed fur too, of course. When I cuddle with them, their fur gets stuck on my shirt and I sneeze quite a bit but not enough for me to get those sneeze attacks. I think sneezing is almost an everyday part of my life so I didn't really think of it before. They're also outside cats and they're just downstairs most of the time and they don't like too much cuddles so allergy in cats are not considered.
But since we got Mew, I've been getting a lot of fur everywhere. Even in newly washed clothes, they just stick there. And since he's just in my room most of the time and we cuddle a lot, the fur gets stuck to my face more often. That triggers it.
He's also very okay with cuddling so I spend more time with him. He also often wake me up by putting his face on my face which obviously puts his fur on my face more often. XD So I guess I'm already allergic to cats too for a long time but I just didn't notice it before until now.
With what I researched, it's not exactly the fur that's causing it. It's the protein they release in the air and they release it all the time. For some other people, they immediately get triggered even with small amount of exposure to the cat or just breathing in the same house as the cat.
Since it takes me more exposure to get it triggered, I think I only have the mild one. The fur that gets mostly stuck on my face and shirt carries the allergen which makes me exposed for a long time even though I'm not carrying Mew.
I also just found out that male cats produce more allergens than female cats. Yeah that makes sense since Mew is male and the rest are females. Persian cats also produce more allergens than other breeds. Wew. xD
So what do I do?
There's really nothing much I can do other than cleaning more often and using the lint remover to remove fur on tshirts. Also maybe not put him on my face more often would be helpful. xD Taking antihistamines are helpful to me as well whenever I get the sneeze attacks. It's not life-threatening to me so it's fine.
I've also read that once a male cat gets neutered, they lessen their allergens release but that's not going to be my decision alone. Regardless of him getting neutered soon or not, I will still need to be more careful with the interactions anyway. But pretty sure I will need to buy more lint removers and also probably get one that I can put in the washer so they can catch the lint while being washed.
Anyway, Mew is doing really well after being sick and thank you for all the well-wishes!