Is Your Work Environment Making You Sick?

 When you were first diagnosed with asthma,or allergies you were probably given tests to determine what triggered your condition.  If those tests results revealed your triggers to be airborne allergens and irritants, as is the case with 70% of people with asthma, you were most likely advised to rid your home of these triggers–especially in your bedroom.  That’s logical because most people spend 6 to 10 hours out of 24 in their bedrooms, and it’s a good place to start.  But, the other place most of us spend a large portion of our time is at work.  And one of the most common work settings is the office.  It makes sense, then, for you to address potential triggers in your office environment.

If experience breathing problems at work you may have occupational asthma.  Occupational asthma is defined as a disease characterized by variable airflow obstruction and/or airway hyper-responsiveness due to agents in the working environment.  In a variety of industrial and technical jobs, occupational asthma can be serious enough to cause a person to change professions or receive workmen’s compensation while being retrained for another job. 

So, How Much Control Can You Have in the Office?You’ve given away the pets, cleaned the air ducts, removed carpeting and asked friends and family not to smoke or wear perfume and colognes when visiting.  But, you may believe that you don’t have the same degree of control over your work environment that you do at home.  Or, perhaps you feel that your boss and co-workers wouldn’t understand if you attempted to make certain changes within the office.  So, you continue to expose yourself to asthma triggers that lower your productivity at work and cause you to take sick days due to uncontrolled asthma.

The employee with poorly managed asthma loses the ability to be fully productive.  In the US, this loss translates into an estimated cost to employers of nearly $4 billion annually.

To ensure your health, as well as your employment, it is important that you look for ways to eliminate or reduce potential asthma triggers in the office.  Some common asthma triggers in the office setting include:

• mold and fungi (in air ducts, plants and books),
• dust and dust mites (that accumulate on venetian blinds, in boxes and papers in storage rooms, and in carpeting),
• copier fumes (from improperly vented copy machines),
• perfumes and colognes (from co-workers),
• tobacco smoke (that may travel through the air vents, or flow into your area from the smokers’ lounge),
• cockroaches (and the pesticides used to treat them),and
• stress from overwork, and reduced resistance from long work hours.

Asthma triggers in your office may be difficult to detect.   Asthma specialists know that triggers in your work environment should be suspected, especially in cases of adult-onset asthma.  If you haven’t already been tested, your doctor may suggest a skin test, blood test or perhaps an inhalation test with specific agents to determine what is triggering your symptoms.  You can help by keeping an asthma symptom diary and by taking peak flow measurements when you are at work and at home.  Share this information with your doctor.  Does your asthma seem to worsen when you’re at work?  Do your symptoms subside when you’ve been away from work for a few days or more?  If you and your doctor conclude that work is the problem, the earlier you remove triggers from your work environment, the better your chances for recovery.