Chins and respiratory/sinuse problems in people

[Riven]

I was wondering if anyone else has experienced increased health problems with owning chins, especially in larger numbers.

Less than a year ago I had to have surgery done on my sinuses and the good doctor has been talking about an encore. I've never had sinus issues in the past, nor do they run in my family. I'm not looking forward to another surgery, I still haven't paid off my last one and it's very painful. I would always wear a mask while cleaning and dusting, but then it got to where I'd have to have a mask even to feed.

Anyone else have issues like this?

 

[AZChins]

No, I've never had any sinus problems at all with the chinchillas. I've had at least 80 for about 13 years now, at least 200 for almost 10 years. I dust twice a week, I give out hay at night. I've never had any issues at all, but it could be because I clean them so often that I never allow the ammonia smell to set it at all. The dust doesn't bother me, the hay doesn't bother me...nothing about them has ever be a problem. I've never had anyone come over and have any issues with being around chins either.

 

[mercynursie]

I don't know if it makes a difference with the chins,but anytime I do heavy clean out/total stall stripping/rake aisle,clean hay area,etc or even mow the lawn I take my saline nose spray in the shower with me and shower/spray/blow nose until absolutely no as I tend to call them "barn boogies" come out.I learned years back if I didn't do this,I would get a nasty sinus infection within a week.So, I do it when I do the total chin cage clean/liner change too. Also I try to go by a wise old timey(now deceased) Dr's advice when I start feeling sinus congestion/pressure the only med I will take is one of the plain formula guafensins.He told me "think about it,if you have something going on up there,why in the world do you want to dry it up and leave it in there?" Since then I follow his idea and just use the meds to make my nose runny and drink lots of fluids. Now I only get sinus infection maybe once a year if that.Alot of people have started using the little saline pot thingies but I just use the cheap bottle of saline nose spray.

 

[Spoof]

I haven't had any issues except with Blue Cloud. I just use a different dust. I did learn from sharing a house with 60 for a few years that I wouldn't do large numbers in the house again or even small numbers. Just too messy. I also vent my barn every chance I get.

 

[tunes]

I don't know if it's related, but I'm facing sinus surgery too Nicole, though I'm told my version of it won't make me feel any worse off than I feel going in (congested, headache, drainage, etc.) until it heals. I started having issues back in February, and I'm convinced it's because we had such a light winter. We never had snow, and most of the time we were in the 60s and 70s. Right now, as long as I stay in the house I'm fairly okay, but when I walk outside all bets are off. I can't breathe, my nose instantly stuffs up, and I start wheezing.

I do wonder about the dusting though. I usually try to wear a mask or at the very least have fan in the window pulling the air out and it doesn't seem to bother me, but who knows? Maybe years of accumulated dust are catching up to me.

 

[Jenn]

Is it chin exposure, or could it be just due to pollution and bad air quality in general? I seem to have some allergies and breathing issues pop up when I never had an issue before, and I tend to think it is more due to poor air quality than anything else.

 

[Riven]

The chin house is set up with good ventilation and I always run the exhaust full time when cleaning or dusting.

I never had any problems until the last year and a half, we hayed, cleaned stalls, worked cattle, worked for the vet in some questionable environments, all of it. The cleaning cages and dusting is what sets it off the worst, the horses don't seem to bother it. I did cut some really old red cedar 2x6's the other day for a project we were working on here and that set it off big time, I had to rinse, spray, steroids, the whole works after that. Otherwise it's mostly the chins that set it off.

I went through over 6 months of health terror because I didn't have any typical signs of sinus infection and we didn't know what was causing me to be ill. I was exhausted (I could sleep for two days straight), nauseous, the works, but I never had pain in my face at all. We went through everything from thyroid testing to hormone testing and more. Finally the doctor noticed I was sniffing, he asked when that started and I said it happens if I don't take my allergy meds ( which I don't need anymore), he xrayed my head and sent me to the ENT for a CT, he said every sinus cavity was so full he didn't know how my face didn't almost explode, then it got worse after that the pain got so bad nothing would help it, I'd sleep with ice on my face and taking heavy meds just to function, until they did the surgery.

 

[SunshinePixie]

I'm allergic to hay and the dust. I just keep the place super clean, and really keep meaning to buy a dust mask.

The way I see it is poor air quality from hay and dust, the chins just happen to be these cute things that need that stuff. xD

 

[becky12883]

My mom is allergic to everything and has had 2 sinus surgeries. The chins have never bothered her when she was here. She now swears by her Nettipot. She had the 2 surgeries and said that the pain was not worth the small amount of time she felt relief. She does the saline or just regular warm water at least once a day. I'm allergic to the hay, but I take a Zyrtec everyday anyways. I believe allergies and sinus issues are getting worse for many people due to the horrible air quality from many different pollutants.

 

[VolunteerChin22]

You can develop allergies you didnt have before - my husband has never had allergies but now his second year in TN he has had a lot of issues. Have you ever had allergy testing or shots?

 

[tunes]

I'm about to have allergy testing. I've coughed so much I've bruised ribs, can't sleep, my stomach hurts. All the drainage just keeps going down and settling into my chest.

I used a Netti pot once. It was the most fabulous thing. Unfortunately, I have an incredibly bad gag reflex. The next time I went to use it, it ended up touching the back of my throat, and I ended up vomiting for 20 minutes. I'm terrified to try it again. I'd rather have the flu for a month than throw up once.

 

[lilchinchilla]

I thought I had dust allergies for the past three or so years (I never had them before, so it seemed weird.). I would get stuffed up, congested, couldn't breathe at all. It hurt to just suck in a bit of air. I was even given inhalers by doctors, and had been using those, and it helped a little...

This last year, I had so many physical issues though, that I finally was referred to an ENT(the gp's seem to be stupid here.).
Who found two issues wrong with me. One of which was my tonsils. Ever since I have had them removed, I can breathe again. I would never have thought they were what was attributing to my breathing problems(I've been told tonsils can also cause sleep apnea later in life.).
I have not used an inhaler since having the surgery last month. It's like a new lease on life. I can breathe in dust - and no issues whatsoever.

No more sore throats, no more infections or congestion; nothing. It's been great. I need one more surgery, and am looking at that soon, and hopefully I will be one hundred percent. I just want my life back, it's been very oppressing.

Have you been to an ENT?

 

[halfstache]

I haven't had any problems around dust or hay, but then I don't have anywhere near the numbers of chinchillas as many of you. I was wondering though, for those of you who do wear masks now, what type of mask are you using? One of the materials that I work with is Borid Dust, this is for my job and absolutely not for the chinchillas (although I'm sure they ever got a chance they'd roll like crazy in it, which would be a disaster.) Anyhow we have to use a two part canister half face mask or a two part canister full face mask that is NIOSH approved. Cartridges are supposed to be changed I think every 8 hours of use. If your using one of those paper dust masks they really are not designed to keep everything out and may not really help much. Generally the rule is if your working in an enclosed space, and I am sure that a chin barn would count, you'd have to wear a proper mask if doing any type of pesticide application. I imagine it would be a similar hazard when being exposed to large volumes of any dust while in an enclosed environment regardless of the amount of ventilation. In fact being in an enclosed environment with open windows or circulating air could actually make the dust particles in the air that much easier to inhale.

 

[Spoof]

Serena, that is very interesting! My tonsils were taken out as a baby.

I have developed food sensitivities, in particular I can get into something that causes me to instantly snot up and get "the flu" complete with closed sinuses and epic grossness for about 45 minutes. Two days ago a peach set it off. After that 45 minutes I'm back to normal.

When I breathe blue cloud or handle a chin that has dusted it's like there is a tight band around my chest and throat. Sweet PDZ will dry out my eyes if I hang out in there too long. I use these though I know I should probably use a respirator if I don't want to be breathing in dust. I also dust and run, it takes me less than 2 minutes to drop the dust in the barn and get out.

The fans suck the dust that is being kicked up outside the barn. Otherwise it settles in there along with monster hairballs.

he xrayed my head and sent me to the ENT for a CT, he said every sinus cavity was so full he didn't know how my face didn't almost explode,

Full of what? Like regular snot or did the tissue swell up? This sounds scary.

 

[tunes]

I've got the same thing Nicole. They did the CT and I watched the results roll up and said "um, that's not supposed to look like that, is it?" The tech said no, those are supposed to be black, not completely gray. So I went to an ENT specialist and he stuck a camera up my nose (which is just gross to watch) and thankfully my septum isn't deviated (Kody's was and he went through h#ll for his surgery to repair it) but he said the infection is so far up they can't actually go in and get it all out. He said it's too close to my eyes and my brain. So they are going to have to use a balloon cath, like with heart surgery, push it up there and inflate it.

Sounds pleasant, doesn't it? So they want to scrape me out and cut back all the swollen tissue. It makes me ill thinking about it. Took me five years to get my gallbladder out. Not looking forward to this either.

 

[DevnChip]

Thanks for the tip on the tonsils. If I get worse that will be the first thing I have checked out. I'm also a big fan of the netti pot. Best little invention ever. Tip for users; tilt your head so the top is lower than your jaw to keep the water flowing through your sinus and away from your throat. Getting it to flow down into your mouth is an advanced technique that I haven't been able to master due to my fear of gagging as well so I keep that tilt to prevent it from going into my throat.

I use the paper masks that almost every store carries in their painting department when I clean. The blue or white ones. Probably not the smartest choice. I should be using my dye mask. I got this because the dyes I use for crafting come in powdered form and are all labeled saying they cause cancer. Don't want that in my lungs any more than I want Blue Cloud there. Some of my dyes are as fine a powder as the chin dust (or finer) and this mask is recommended by my supplier as THE mask to use to prevent inhaling airborn dye while mixing it. It's fully adjustable and easy to wear. I just need to use it for more than my crafting.

I went from one chin and one cage to two chins and two cages and have noticed my allergies got a touch worse. I account it to the extra dust. I also keep a large number of dust producing birds inside my house. Pigeons are known for dust creation as well as any member of the parrot family. I have 3 pigeons, 4 cockatiels, 4 budgies and a small house. So I have a house full of dust creating and distributing critters and when I clean any cage I get the same tight chest others have reported. My A/C system doesn't like it any more than my lungs and sinuses. Then I have allergies to trees, grasses, pollens, and molds. And yes, allergins are at their worst ever this year and pollution doesn't help either. I currently take Zyrtec-D. I have to have the decongestant or it isn't effective. I have not had any sinus surgeries as of yet so don't have any advice or experience to relate there. Sounds scary and don't want to go there. Wish there was another way for those of you who are facing it.

I strongly urge anyone that has reactions to cage cleanings to get the mask I listed above and get air filters for the area the cage is in. The less dust you inhale, the less stress on your system. I'm guilty of diving into the work without my mask myself and I suffer for it every time.

 

[Riven]

They've done allergy panels on me and found I had a very small amount of allergies, not enough to cause this much sinus problems.

I have a nasal attachment for my WaterPik I use. You should not use tap water for netti pots, they can promote infections, you should always use distilled water or preferably sterile saline.

 

[DevnChip]

Thank you, Riven. I didn't distinguish that water, but you're right. It should be sterile so you don't introduce anything new that could make matters worse.

I think I've mentioned before in a similar thread that one doesn't have to have allergies to have issues with the dust. Any fine particulate that can hover in the air long enough to be inhaled can cause issues with the delicate tissues of the body; sinus or otherwise. It irritates and may even imbed in these tissues and can cause allergy- and asthma-like symptoms. I preach, but do not always practice (shame on me), when cleaning a cage wear a mask.

Years of listening to asthma specialists figure out how to help my mom breathe easier.

 

[Megan]

My allergies were doing pretty well when I first got chins. As my numbers grew, I noticed my allergies getting worse. I started needing an inhaler, cleaning and dusting just about killed me. At this point the chins were in a spare bedroom.

I now have them in their own unit, dust very infrequently and Jason cleans my cages. I have slowly gotten better in the last year, and I can handle going into the chin unit for short periods of time. Longer I am in there, my allergies start acting up.

I do think they play a huge part in my asthma and allergies.